


For Your Information

by Starbird



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Aliases, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Awkward Conversations, Canon Compliant Angst, Cassian is Jyn's First, Cassian's a Different Lover Undercover, ConfidentLover!Cassian, Disregard for Concept of Personal Space, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Smut, F/M, Face-Sitting, First Time, Fix-It, Liana Hallik - Freeform, Minor Violence, Not the Canon Ending, Oral Sex, POV Alternating, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Pre-Canon, Pre-Rogue One, Smut, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, The Hangar Scene, Two Slow Burns in One, Undercover Cassian, Undercover Missions, VirJyn, Welcome Home, during Rogue One
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-20
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2018-12-31 20:14:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 31,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12140241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starbird/pseuds/Starbird
Summary: Jyn and Cassian cross paths two years before Rogue One when Cassian is undercover. "Liana Hallik" has information "Ky" needs, and he has a way for her to get off a planet she’s desperately trying to escape from. Cassian thinks Jyn is falling for his charm and his offer to protect her from the thugs out to get her, while Jyn plays to that side of his alias in order to make enough credits to get off-world. Both use the other; both think they’re winning. Goes through the movie and after.





	1. Jyn

**Author's Note:**

> I am probably off here with the idea of Cassian meeting Jyn as Liana a couple years before the movie, and if I am, let’s just pretend I’m not. There are probably more than a few Lianas in the universe. I was thinking by the time he gets the assignment to find Jyn, he recognizes her picture and is like “oh shit,” then works through Jyn’s aliases and figures out who she is and is like “oh double shit.” I plan on taking this through at least their meeting in the movie and a missing scene before they get into the U-wing. I’ll probably not be able to help myself and expand it and keep going or something horrible like that because I have a problem.
> 
> Fun Fact: This story literally started with the idea of Cassian being Jyn's first, and went from there.

_Mundi Minor_

_2 BBY_

_Jyn_

Jyn Erso rubbed her sore jaw as she sat in the dirty alley, grit from the broken duracrete biting into the seat of her skirt and the palm that rested on the ground. She watched as the two men who had just shaken her down walked out of the alleyway’s mouth. One, Revy, sent a glare back over his shoulder, which she returned.

_Swipe behind the knees. Hit the back of the wrist. Grab the dropped blaster while kicking the other guy in the groin. Elbow them both across the face and then shoot them._

That’s all it would’ve taken with her truncheons. Jyn knew exactly how she would have done it. But Revy and Mersado going missing wouldn’t have gone unnoticed by Peets, the jeweler she’d boosted black market blood gems from.

She hadn’t known they were blood gems when she’d planned the boost. She was originally going to do it because she needed the money to get off-planet. When she found out he’d gotten precious gems from slave laborers under Imperial rule, she’d broken into his jewelry shop and stolen everything she could get her hands on for the principle of it. Then she’d turned around, given all the gems to Church of the Force ministries, homeless shelters, and orphanages, and considered herself done with the matter.

That was when Revy and Mersado had gotten her. Peets was out for both blood and money, and he wanted them before he killed Jyn. He’d made that very clear. Revy and Mersado were mid-level bully boys – Jyn had already dispatched with the low-level ones and learned her lesson – and now that Jyn had been informed that Peets had a vast network of people and was just about the worst person on the whole continent that she could steal from, she was in a bit of a bind.

With a sigh, Jyn brushed herself off and stood up. She used the half-apron from her bag, already dirty from her long shift at The Boiling Pot, to mop up the blood on her face and knuckles. Clenching her fingers around the rough fabric, she stuffed it back into her bag and continued home.

* * *

“Liana, what happened to you?!” Semmi exclaimed when Jyn walked into work the next day for the lunch shift. Jyn shrugged.

“ ’S no big deal,” she said as she tapped in the code for her locker. She yanked on the metal, but it wouldn’t budge. A quick slam with her fist unstuck it, and she reached inside for her nametag. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

“That doesn’t look like _nothing_.”

Jyn didn’t reply, pretending to focus on getting ready for her shift so as to ignore the growing fears in her mind. There was no way she was going to come up with the money to repay Peets for the gems she’d stolen. No one in her position had that kind of money. But Revy and Mersado sure were taking every free credit she had. She’d begun to leave some at the diner so she could pay her rent and buy food, but at the rate she was going, Peets would get tired of his game soon, and just kill her. She needed to get off-world _fast_.

“You really need to get a boyfriend around here,” Semmi said as she tied on her white half-apron. “I don’t go anywhere at night without Kurdan. I can’t.”

“Yeah, this area’s a dump,” Jyn replied, slamming her locker closed. She looked at Semmi, who still had an expression of concern on her face. “What can you do?”

The other waitress looked hurt, and as Jyn walked out onto the floor, she felt a stab of guilt. The sweet chocolate-haired, blue-eyed Semmi had been the only one to show Jyn any amount of kindness at The Boiling Pot, and she’d helped Jyn navigate the neighborhood, too. Jyn didn’t need to snap at her.

 _My nerves are getting to me_ , Jyn thought.

“Hallik,” the owner, Hert, called to her. “You have tables one through eight.”

Jyn raised her eyebrows. “One through eight? Last night I only had one through six. That’s two tables too many.”

He shrugged. “Deal with it. Or quit. Your choice. I don’t care either way. But you damn well better work your kriffin’ shift first.”

Jyn turned away from him, her teeth gritted, and stormed over to table three. “What do you want?” she asked the single occupant, a man with dark hair and a slight build.

“Bad day?” he asked. His voice was heavily accented, and she couldn’t place it, nor was she interested in doing so.

“The special is nirva fish with a spice blend,” Jyn said. “I don’t recommend it.”

“What do you recommend, then?”

“Going someplace else.”

He didn’t reply, and Jyn looked up from her order pad to see why. His eyes – dark brown – were on her face, and she felt uncomfortable with his gaze. She stared back, though, taking stock of him in case he was going to be trouble. Sharp jaw, sharp cheekbones, stubble, nondescript clothes. Utterly forgettable.

“Look, you going to order or not?” Jyn finally said, perturbed at how he was drawing this out. “I’m losing tips here.”

“You seem like you’re in a bit of a tough spot…” – he glanced at her nametag – “…Liana.”

Jyn fought the urge to touch the bruise that had blossomed overnight along her jaw. Hert sure didn’t care about it. The only one who cared was Semmi, and Jyn had been short with her.

“I’m not…” Jyn leaned in and raised her eyebrows, mocking him, her tone indicating that he should share his name as well.

“Ky.”

“Well, _Ky_ , you have cost me valuable time and credits. I suggest you – ”

“HALLIK,” boomed the owner, and Jyn closed her eyes and turned around. He crooked his finger, and Jyn followed his command and walked up to him.

“Problem?” she asked sweetly.

“What was that? Were you harassing that customer?”

“He wasn’t ordering,” Jyn said. “Time is money. He was being chatty.”

“Yeah? Maybe you’d get better tips if _you_ would be a little more _chatty_. I hired you because you look nice around this dump. Make use of what the Force gave you and bring in some money, girl.”

Jyn went back over to Ky’s table, raised her dirty shoe, and plunked it down on the padded booth next to him. Her skirt slid up higher, revealing more of her leg.

“Hi there, I’m Liana,” she said, pitching her voice to something nicer. “How may I service you?”

Ky stared at her leg, then picked up her shoe and removed it from the booth. Jyn easily pivoted. “This is the worst service I have ever received,” he said.

“I know.” Jyn thought a moment. “I’m just going to order for you. You’ll have the imported nerf steak, dubiously frozen for three days in transit, with fresh vegetables on the side that are actually not bad, an appetizer, and a drink. Good?”

“You ordered me the most expensive things.”

“I did.” Jyn dropped the order pad into her pocket. “You better tip well.”

“I do.”

Jyn started to turn away, but his voice saying her name stopped her. She turned back. He motioned for her to come closer, so she bent down a little to hear him.

“I can help you out,” he said. Jyn furrowed her brow.

“Why…?”

“I’ve been in here a couple times and seen you around. I can tell you’re in a tough spot and could use it.”

“You’ve been watching me?”

“Not you in particular.”

Jyn thought back to Semmi’s comment about needing a boyfriend in this seedy neighborhood. It wasn’t a bad idea, especially if it meant Peets’s boys would back off if another man were coming at them. And if this guy had something else to offer other than his “help,” so much the better.

“Okay,” Jyn said, “but I’m not sleeping with you.”

He raised his eyebrows again in surprise. “That…is…not where I was going with this. No.”

Jyn shrugged. “Your loss.”

Ky shook his head and moved on. “I help you out, you help me out. You need something I think I can give you, and I need something I think you can give me.”

“I’ve certainly gotten worse offers,” Jyn said. “When do you want to talk?”

“When does your shift end?”

“Twenty-two.”

“I’ll be by the side door. Make sure you’re alone.”

_“HALLIK!”_

“I’ll see you then,” Jyn said, and left his table. She moved on to the next one, but she was distracted as she took their order. Ky stayed at The Boiling Pot for a good hour, and Jyn found herself glancing at him every so often. Occasionally his eyes met hers, but mostly he seemed to not be paying much attention. After he left, Jyn kept checking the chronometer on the wall, willing it to move faster. She didn’t really _believe_ this was finally her ticket out of here, but maybe, just maybe…

For the first time in a long time, Jyn Erso felt a flicker of hope. She smiled, thinking about the innuendo in his words. _You need something I think I can give you._ Money. She needed money. He knew she needed money. He had money. _He had a lot of money._ And a ship? He had to have a ship. He had a way off-planet.

And if he didn’t want to share all that? If he decided to be cheap? Well, Jyn knew how to steal and turn the tables on someone. She’d learned that long ago. Even if he did decide to be generous, she’d still find a way to take him for all he had and use him to his fullest extent. If that meant selling him out to someone else or holding him hostage on his ship until they landed somewhere else, and then shooting him? Well, times were tough.

But Jyn Erso was tougher.

The poor bastard would never know what hit him when she was done with him.


	2. Cassian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassian talks over his meeting with Liana with K-2SO, then meets Liana that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternating POV! Yay! I’m excited to do this for once.

_Cassian_

Captain Cassian Andor, Rebel Alliance Intelligence, surreptitiously checked over his shoulder for a third time to make sure no one was following him, then backtracked down dark alleyways before he turned up the road heading to the spaceport. At 2135, it wasn’t a late hour, but it was dark enough that the only beings around were miscreants in bars, criminals, and others up to absolutely no good. Cassian quickened his steps and was glad to reach his ship, a nondescript but masterfully beat-up SoroSuub freighter registered to his alias, a merchant with a shady enough past to be left well enough alone. Cassian glanced around the bay to be sure he was alone and shut the doors, then went over to the ship, extended the ramp, boarded, and locked the ship back up.

“Kay,” he said by way of greeting when the big droid lumbered into view. K-2SO, his reprogrammed Imperial security droid, looked him up and down.

“You have news,” the droid said.

“I do.” Cassian moved past him toward the single cabin in the back. “Ship clean still?”

“It is. I have been running scans hourly as ordered.”

“Thanks.” He heard Kay’s metal footsteps as he followed. Cassian shrugged into another jacket, a black leather one with hidden pockets, and got out a locked case with a false bottom. He placed his thumb against the scanner, and it unlocked after reading his print. He removed the false bottom, the double layer of security. Inside were dozens of credits, his backup in case a mission took too long…

…Or in case he needed to bribe someone or pay them off.

Liana Hallik, it seemed, fell into the latter category.

“What are you doing with that?” Kay asked. “Are we in trouble already?” His tone was judgmental.

Cassian shook his head. “No. I’ve found my in. A waitress at the diner I’ve been going to. She’s in some trouble, and she needs what I can offer her.”

Kay whirred, and Cassian waited as the droid ran his numbers. “You’re paying her for information because there isn’t another choice right now. That seems rash.”

Cassian shrugged. “A little. But she’s desperate. She’s in deep and got some thugs after her. She needs a way off-world as soon as possible. She also lives in a very dangerous area, and she can’t really take care of herself in a street fight. I need information on her boss. She has something I very much want, and I have something to offer she not only _wants_ , but _needs_.” He flicked through the coins, mentally summing them up. “It’s mutually beneficially, with me having the upper hand.”

“You’re not actually going to give her _all our money_!”

“Of course not.” Cassian scoffed. “I’ll give her enough to get her talking, and then we’ll see how it goes from there.”

“What’s your profile of her?” Kay asked.

Cassian sat on the bunk next to the box and thought, running through the information from the last three days. “She’s young, maybe around twenty, attractive, thin enough that she doesn’t get regular meals, reckless definitely…” His mind went back to what he’d witnessed of the street fight, and how Liana had landed a good kick and a punch, but little more. “Someone’s clearly taught her the basics of fighting, but other than that – ”

He cut himself off, remembering the incident from lunch, when Liana’s boss had yelled at her. She’d come back to the table, propped her foot up on the padded booth next to him, and apparently attempted to be more flirty. Cassian had removed her foot, and she had pivoted. Gracefully. Never once losing her balance.

“She’d hiding it,” Cassian realized.

“Hiding what?” Kay asked.

“I misjudged her. She can fight…” Cassian said, thinking, “…but she doesn’t want the people who are after her to know she can. Which means she’s in deep with something else.”

“Identity?”

“Could be. I assumed it was a fake name in this place anyway. No one uses their real name.”

“What is your conclusion?”

Cassian nodded, absently picking up a credit chip and rolling it between his fingers. “She’s desperate. Desperate enough to do anything it takes to get off-world and away from her problems.”

“So you’re going to play nice.”

“I don’t play nice,” Cassian said, standing from the bunk and counting out the credits, which he divided into three inner pockets on his jacket. “I need to get back. I’m meeting her in about fifteen minutes. I’ll send you the information as I get it.”

 

Liana didn’t emerge from the side door of The Boiling Pot until 2211. Cassian leaned casually against the cheap prefab wall, arms and ankles crossed, affecting a posture that combined aloofness with toughness.

“You’re here,” Liana said. “I’m surprised.”

Cassian shrugged. “I said I would be.” He tilted his head to the mouth of the alley the side door led out to. “This way.”

Liana snorted. “You just expect me to trust you and follow you into the night.”

“No,” Cassian said. “You’re welcome to go another round with those thugs without me. I saw them lurking two streets over when I came here.”

“Hmph. I can take care of myself.”

“Really?” He peered closer at her, examining the bruise on her jaw more closely under the dim yellow light over the door. “You seem like you could use some extra muscle.”

Liana barked out a loud laugh that echoed off the hard walls. “ _You?_ Please. I could take you easily.”

Cassian shrugged, not offended in the slightest. “You’d be surprised by the skills I have. It’s not always what you can see that’s most dangerous.”

“Mm.” She looked around, her finger tapping on the strap of her bag. “Well…there’s a lounge about five minutes away that never gets much traffic, especially at this time of night. We could talk there.”

“I know it.”

 

They sat in broken, sagging armchairs in the basement of a lounge called Yves, Cassian nursing his weak drink in silence while he surveyed the room and kept an eye on Liana. He wanted to throw her off-balance, make her uncomfortable, put her on edge.

After a few minutes of him not speaking and making no move to speak, it seemed to be working.

“You wanted to talk to me?” she finally said irritably. “We’re not talking.”

“Your boss,” Cassian said. “You know what he’s up to?” Liana shrugged. Cassian shrugged back. “All right.” He stood, set his drink on the small table between them, and tossed a credit down. Without another word, he took a step away.

Liana’s hand shot out and grabbed his sleeve. “Not so fast,” she snarled, fingers gripping the material so tight, Cassian felt her knuckles press into his skin. Cassian gave her a disinterested look, and sat back down.

“You’re not talking, either,” he said. “You don’t have information, I find it elsewhere.”

Liana moved her chair closer to his. “I know the diner is a front.”

“Everybody knows that.” He pitched his voice lower, commanding. “Tell me something new.”

“He has no love for the Empire,” Liana said, and that _was_ new information. Alliance Intelligence had assumed he was funneling his illegal weapons back to the Empire for their black ops – the unsanctioned ones where citizens disappeared, never to be heard from again. The Alliance wanted those weapons, to be turned on the Empire itself. The information that Hert wasn’t sending the weapons to the Empire changed nothing, except principle. Cassian still had his mission to follow the trail and change the stream of weapons toward other undercover Alliance agents and get it flowing toward the Alliance.

Cassian raised his eyebrows expectantly. “And?”

 _“And,”_ Liana said, “I know who his next point of contact is. That good enough for you?”

“Names,” Cassian said, tapping his finger on the tabletop. “I need names.”

“I need money.”

“Names first.”

“I’ve given you information,” Liana said. “Now it’s your turn.”

Cassian sighed to himself. She certainly wasn’t going to be easy to work with. He had hoped she would be easier to twist than this. He sent a glance around, saw none of the other few patrons were paying attention, and reached into his jacket. He palmed fifty credits, starting low, and held his hand out under the table for her. Liana reached over, and he dropped the credits in, his fingers brushing her palm.

She withdrew her hand, looked at the sum, and scoffed.

“Fifty,” she said flatly, looking at the credits as if they might bite her. “I risk my life to give you this information, when my life is already on the line, and you give me a measly fifty.”

Cassian gave her a bland look. “Information is worth money. Good information is worth more.”

Liana pocketed the money anyway. “You seem to know my business so well. You never told me what you do.”

“I get by.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It’s all you get.”

Liana pushed out a breath through her nose. “I’m just supposed to trust you.”

“And I you,” Cassian said. “Trust goes both ways.”

“Right.” She leaned back in her seat, pensive. Cassian let her mull over whatever was in her mind. “I need to avoid the people after me, and I need to get off-world. I did a good thing, and I’m paying for it.”

“As I said,” Cassian reiterated: “I can help you with that.”

Liana looked over. “You got money and a ship?”

Cassian didn’t answer. Liana frowned.

“Anyone ever tell you you’re frustrating company?” she said.

Even though Cassian was undercover and using an alias, that part, at least, was pure Cassian Andor as an Intelligence agent. “Yes,” he said.

Liana folded her arms and pierced him with her gaze. “Just tell me this, if nothing else: why do you want to help me?”

“Because you can help me,” Cassian replied, and that was true as well. He wanted nothing but information from her, and he intended to get it. His mission parameters were clear. He would do whatever it took.

“Why are you after my boss?” Liana asked.

Cassian knew she was the type of target who didn’t trust easily, and was more suspicious than most. She _needed_ to know. “My boss wants to go after him,” he said. “We done here?”

“We are.” Liana stood. “Goodnight.”

Cassian quickly stood and took her elbow. “Wait,” he said. She looked down at his hand, but he didn’t remove it. He still had another part of his alias to play, another thing he’d promised her. “I’ll walk you home.”

“So you can see where I live and rob me,” Liana said, her suspicion showing again. “Or even worse.”

“Doesn’t seem to me you have much to steal.”

Liana growled. “How do I know you’re not one of Peets’s men?”

“You don’t,” Cassian said. “But I’m not.”

That didn’t seem to convince her totally, but she let him walk with her as they left the basement and the lounge. Their walk to her apartment was silent. Cassian felt the extra credits in his coat as his hands rested in his pockets. Extra credits, extra leverage.

Liana’s apartment was on the third floor of an old building, up a shadowy, rickety stairwell that didn’t look like it would survive much longer. She turned to him at the door, pressing her back against it, one hand up the sleeve of her jacket.

“Don’t come any closer,” she warned. “I _am_ armed.”

“I don’t doubt that you are,” Cassian said. “So am I.” She sent a glance over him, looking for a weapon, but his was as concealed as hers. “I was going to give you the other part of your payment, but if you don’t want me any closer…”

Liana let out a “hmph” and held out her hand. Cassian took another fifty out, kept his eyes on hers, put it into her palm, and closed her fingers over it. He pushed it gently back to her chest, and she didn’t resist.

But her green eyes softened, just a little.

Cassian nodded at her. “Goodnight, Liana.”

“Goodnight,” she said, and he didn’t miss how her voice caught. A thrill of success flared up inside him. _A mark easily turned._ Cassian knew more than any other agent how to be personable, how to get to someone, how to work them. _How to spin them. How to make them useful._ He’d begun knocking down her barriers already, in just a few hours.

All too easy.

_And this is why they send me for this type of work._

He could get to anyone.

Cassian turned away from her, knowing she would have just one more question for him.

He didn’t get more than two steps away.

“Wait,” she said, and he did. In his mind, he smiled, but his face, impassive, the spy’s face, _the liar’s face_ , stayed neutral as he turned back around.

“Yes?”

“How do we do this?” she asked. “When will I see you again? For…payment? I don’t exactly have all the time in the galaxy here.”

“You’ll see me,” Cassian said, “when you see me.”

And with that, he left.


	3. Jyn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jyn hasn’t seen Ky in three days. Someone steals from her at the diner. The thugs catch up to her again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who's reading and commenting! I'm so glad you're enjoying this! I'm having a ton of fun with it, too, to be quite honest.

_Jyn_

 

_You’ll see me when you see me._

Jyn slammed down the pot of caf into the warmer and turned back around at the counter. Hert wasn’t happy with her performance the last couple days, so he had her working the register and the counter and refilling caf mugs – and getting very few tips.

“You seem angry,” sweet Semmi said, and it was the wrong thing to say. Jyn threw down the cloth she’d grabbed to wipe down the counter, knocking over a patron’s cup of juice.

“Hey – !” he exclaimed.

“I’ll get you another one!” Jyn snapped back.  
  
“I’ve got it,” Semmi said quietly, ducking away to get it. Jyn cleaned up the mess, avoiding eye contact. The customer grumbled.

Jyn hadn’t seen Ky for at least three days, and it made her angry. She _needed_ the money, needed it _so_ badly, and he was _deliberately_ keeping it from her. She wasn’t stupid; she knew it was a message: _your information isn’t good enough._ She did know more, but she wasn’t about to just spill everything to him until she knew just how much he was willing to part with for it. He was shady, and she didn’t trust him.

_Trust goes both ways._

No, it most certainly did not. He may trust her a little, but she trusted him even less.

“That man,” Semmi said after the customer had left and they were alone. “Is he going to help keep you safe here?”

“I don’t know,” Jyn said, looking over the flatware and beginning to reorganize it. “Haven’t seen him lately.”

“They do that. Men aren’t reliable.”

“I know they aren’t. That’s why I don’t keep one around.”

Hert called Semmi’s order out, and she left to deliver it to her table. Jyn thought over what she knew about her boss. She had a good ear, and she’d learned a lot from when she’d been a soldier with the rebel extremist Saw Gerrera, what seemed like a lifetime ago but was, in reality, only three years ago. She knew how to listen, how to remember, how to use.

Just like Ky. Only Ky thought he was using _her_.

_He has no idea what’s coming._

She’d kill him if she had to.

Planet like this, no one would even notice his body in an alley. They’d just haul it off to the crematorium like all the others. Jyn doubted he would even be missed. Undoubtedly he thought he was taking stock of her, studying her and trying to figure her out, but she’d taken stock of him, too. No rings or other form of jewelry indicating he was bound to another person. Out late at night and took his meals alone in a dirty diner, so he probably had no one to go home to. The accent she couldn’t place, though.

“Semmi,” she said when the other waitress returned, “could you place his accent?”

Semmi frowned and shook her head. “I wasn’t listening that closely. I will next time, though.”

Semmi had worked at the diner for the past couple years and had met a lot of different beings from different worlds. Located next to the spaceport, it catered to a transient clientele.

As if summoned by Jyn’s very thoughts, the door whooshed open, and Ky walked in. Jyn suppressed – not a smile, maybe, but relief at seeing him. Any day now Peets’s boys would strike her, and the urge was growing for her to just kill them. Her fingers were itching to pack her truncheons in her bag and bring them to work, but she knew, _knew_ that would give her away as a fighter and get her killed before she could get free of this wretched rock.

Ky sat at the counter. “Good morning,” he said pleasantly, clasping his hands casually in front of him like _he_ had all the time in the galaxy, utterly uncaring of the fact that she didn’t. Force, he was maddening.

“Terrible morning,” Jyn replied. “You look like you’re in a good mood.”

“I am,” he said, and Jyn didn’t miss him shooting his glance around like she’d already become accustomed to him doing. He leaned in. “Your information checked out.”

“Oh, I am so relieved,” she mocked, hand pressed over her chest. “I was so worried I was lying.”

He narrowed his eyes, unamused. Jyn turned to the caf pot. “Caf?” she asked sweetly.

“Please.” Jyn filled a mug and plunked it down in front of him. “Can you meet me tonight?” he asked.

“I can,” Jyn said carefully. “If I don’t meet my friends for dinner at twenty.”

She saw in his eyes that he caught her meaning. “Long shift today,” he said.

“Double,” she replied, and gave him a hard look. “I need all the _help_ I can get.”

Ky nodded and picked up a menu. “Times are tough in the galaxy.”

“It seems to have treated you well.”

“No,” he said, and he didn’t look at her. “It hasn’t.”

He placed his order, and Jyn put it into the kitchen. Hert didn’t seem to notice that Ky was back again, and even if he had, he wouldn’t have cared. He loved repeat customers. He said they were loyal and welcome anytime.

When Ky finished his meal, he paid and left a modest tip. “Let me know if you want company for dinner,” he said as he got up from the stool. “I think I’d get along with your friends.”

“I think you would, too,” Jyn said.

He wished her goodbye, and Jyn watched as he left.

“Festian,” Semmi said from beside her. “He’s from Fest.”

The door slid shut behind him, and still, her gaze lingered.

 

Hert let Jyn go half an hour early from her shift. She protested, but he insisted he didn’t need – or want – her help. She was slow to gather her things, but that didn’t buy her much time. She wished she had a way to get in touch with Ky. He hadn’t given her his comlink frequency, and she didn’t expect he would. Rage burned through her at how she was going to have to take another beating, and she opened up the pouch she’d been keeping in a thin sweater in her locker to stow more credits into it.

The pouch was empty.

Jyn gaped.

Someone had stolen from her.

She closed the pouch, stuffed it back into the sweater, and slammed her locker. Either someone in the diner had exceedingly good luck, or someone knew more than they were letting on.

The streets were already darkening as Jyn walked home, doing her best to appear casual while still keeping an eye out. She knew how to do that. She wanted to increase her pace, but she couldn’t. All she could do was focus on how each step brought her closer to relative safety.

It was one street over from her apartment that Revy and Mersado attacked.

Jyn heard the fast footsteps on the duracrete and turned to see Revy throwing himself at her back. She easily sidestepped, and he went sprawling. Tired of this game, she kicked him in the stomach over and over. Mersado came at her with a kick between the shoulders, which she only dodged partway, and rolled with to lessen the impact. Her balance wavered, but she caught it in time. Revy came up, and she saw a baton in his hand, similar to one the corrupt police carried. He wrapped his other hand around it and brought it down hard into the small of her back.

Jyn went down, but she flipped in time to land on her back, catching her breath as she did.

Sirens wailed down the street, and as she grappled with Revy for the baton, a police speeder slowed to a halt in front of the fight.

“What’s going on here?” the officer asked lazily as he stepped out of the cruiser, in no hurry at all.

“She tried to rob us!” Revy said. “Just taking back what’s ours.” He plucked Jyn’s money pouch from her bag.

“Well, next time, handle it a little more politely,” the officer said. “Ma’am, do I need to write you up?”

“No,” Jyn said with a glare as she got to her feet, breathing hard, fists clenched. “I’ve learned my lesson.”

The officer smirked, half of his mouth quirked up. “That’s what I like to hear.” He tipped his hat to the bullyboys. “Have a nice night, gents.”

As soon as the cruiser was out of sight, Mersado grabbed Jyn’s arms and held them behind her back. Revy punched her across the face. She let her feet go out from under her and flipped Mersado over into Revy.

“You better watch it, girl,” Revy said, grabbing onto her arm and twisting it. She went down again, and he dragged her across the broken duracrete and into the alley, dumping her on all fours in a puddle of dirty rainwater. “Next time, come with two thousand, and take our beating. Or we take you to Peets and let _him_ handle you.”

Mersado snorted. “You won’t like that very much.”

“Don’t suspect I will,” Jyn said, looking up and making eye contact with both of them. “You’d better do what the officer said. Don’t want you breaking the law.”

“Lucky he showed up,” Revy said. “You must have an angel watching over you.”

And he kicked her across the face, snapping her head to the side.

They walked off, and Jyn collapsed onto her side in the puddle, breathing hard. She coughed a couple times, and then she pounded her fist into the puddle over and over until the rocks tore her skin apart and blood came out. She could take them. She could _take them_ and _kill them_.

Footsteps jogged up to her again, and she struggled to get to her feet because _if they came back –_

Ky came into view, looking worried. “Liana?”

She scowled and looked away from him. “Nice of you to show up.”

“I did what I could,” he said, coming over to her. “I know the officer didn’t deter them much.” He crouched down next to her face. “Your boss let you go early.”

“Nice of him.” Jyn rolled to her knees and put a hand on one to push herself up. Her knee wobbled, and her hand slid down into the puddle again. Ky grabbed onto her other arm, but she jerked hard to get out of his grip, nearly toppling him. “Get off! I can do it myself.”

“Come on.” He still had one hand on her arm and put the other on her back to help her up. She stumbled into him. “Let’s get you to your apartment.”

“It’s close,” she said. Ky slung her arm around his neck, put his arm around her waist, and helped her limp home. When she unlocked the door and he followed her in, she didn’t object. She just collapsed on the floor. “I’m not weak,” she said as he went to shut and lock the door.

“I know you aren’t,” he said. “You _are_ in a lot of trouble.”

“Speak for yourself.” Jyn pushed her shoes and socks off and got up, wincing and holding her back, and headed toward her refresher. She waved him off. “You can go now.”

“Liana – ”

_“Go.”_

He didn’t. She didn’t have the strength to fight _him_ , too. He followed her into the refresher, and she gripped the sink, looking in the mirror at her bruised and bloodied face and him standing behind her.

He was too close.

He was in her personal space and _he was too close._

“Come on,” he said, his voice catching a little. His hands were at the hem of her shirt. She stepped away from the sink and faced the shower, reaching in to turn the low-pressure water on. Her shower was truly terrible, but it was all she had.

Ky pushed her shirt up and over her head, the heels of his palms brushing her sides. A shiver raced over her, and her pains seemed distant things. She held very still as he loosened her skirt and helped her out of it, and there she stood before him, her back to him, in only her undergarments.

No one had seen her like this before, except a couple women in the Partisans would had tried to be her friends or a maternal figure.

Jyn crossed her arms protectively over her chest, even though she was still turned away from him. “You can go now,” she said.

He didn’t. She felt his hands – were they shaking? – rest on her waist. She stiffened immediately.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” Ky said quietly.

Jyn felt herself blinking too fast. It hurt to breathe. Her heart was beating too fast, too.

He kissed the crook of her neck, and, _Force_ , she gasped a little _out loud_ and _he had to have heard it_ and she was standing half-naked in her refresher with this man she barely knew, and no one had seen her like this and he needed to _go, go, go_ –

She should slap him. That’s what she should do. _Slap him._

Jyn turned in his hands to do just that. “You – ”

But she didn’t get any further. His hands raked up her waist to her shoulders and pulled her to him and he kissed her, Force, did he kiss her, and she should _still slap him_ and she _didn’t_ , and then she didn’t even want to.

Jyn had kissed men before, but not with much interest. Things had gone further than that, but she’d always stopped before the point of no return. This man, though, whoever he was, she did have interest in kissing, and she barely registered her pain, lifting up onto her toes and wrapping her arms around his neck while steam filled the small room. He felt and tasted so good, and he made her feel like she mattered, like he cared, when she knew he didn’t care, when she knew he was just looking at a half-naked girl who’d just been through a fight and probably saw an opportunity.

Why didn’t she care? Why didn’t that bother her?

Ky’s hands moved down again, to her front, and his fingers slid higher until they were inside her breastband and over her breasts. They moved slowly inward until they brushed across her nipples, already hardened from the chills running over her body.

She wanted to take the damn thing off. She wanted to feel more of his hands on her bare body.

Jyn pulled away and looked at him. His face was flushed, and sweat had gathered on his brow from the humidity in the room.

“I have to clean up,” Jyn said, nodding toward the shower. “You can go.”

She gave him a choice, to interpret it however he wished: _you can go back out and stay, or you can go home._

He gave her a nod, and he said, “I’ll be right outside.”


	4. Cassian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassian has trouble separating business from pleasure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have fuuuuun!! You guys deserve this chapter. It's one of my very favorites that I've written thus far in this fandom. I love all your comments so much. <3

_Cassian_

 

Cassian sat on Liana’s ragged, threadbare couch in her dilapidated apartment, and he swallowed. His mind grabbed onto the extra information he’d been able to glean about Hert from Liana’s information. Hert had a number of people he went through for his illegal weapons smuggling, and he was merely the tip of a giant operation that the Alliance had stumbled upon. If Liana knew the next person, and even better, if she knew where the weapons were coming from in the first place, Cassian would have all he needed to know to complete his mission and move on. He would verify it, bring it back to the Alliance, and probably go out on another mission to find the next smuggler down the chain.

Mission accomplished. Simple as that.

So why was this one getting under his skin so much?

He glanced toward the closed refresher door, hearing the water splash beyond it. Liana was someone the Alliance could use. She was a good fighter, and her hatred for injustice was clear. He’d traced back what had happened that had landed her in such hot water with the guys who were after her. She’d stolen gems and given them to the poor.

Stolen gems… _and given them to the poor._

She hadn’t kept them for herself.

Now people wanted her dead.

Who stuck their neck out for others like that?

 _The Alliance does,_ Cassian thought, crossing his arms and staring harder at the door. _The Alliance needs her._

Cassian had done recruitment for the Alliance at one time, and it was never something he’d truly given up. Liana was someone he needed to sway for the sake of the cause, and he could probably do it.

_For the sake of the cause, or for you?_

_For the sake of the cause,_ he told himself. _I never do anything for me._

It was even true. For a person who lied to himself as often as he lied to others, this was something he knew about himself. His needs always came last. They had to. In Liana, though, he’d seen something that reminded him of something familiar, something he knew, something of…

_Myself?_

He pushed the thought away. It was too painful. He didn’t want to see himself reflected back by anybody. No one deserved to have his qualities inside them as well.

Cassian shifted uneasily and ran his hands back through his hair.

 _Focus,_ he thought. _Next steps._

Now that he’d gotten this far, and he could tell she was somewhat emotionally invested in him ( _need_ wasn’t hard to spot), he could very easily wring the answers out of her. She would give them up as willingly as she’d given her body up to him.

Fuck. That hadn’t been intentional.

But it _had_ worked. It had worked before for Cassian, on the rare occasion when it had been necessary, and it would work again. This girl was not worldly, and she was easily capable of falling into a trap with a man like him. Someone who offered her a way out.

 _A man like me._ He rubbed his hands over his face, disquieted by the thought. _She might even sleep with me just to get off this rock._

Cassian knew agents like that. Agents with no morals, no ethics, agents who _did whatever it took_ using _whatever means necessary_. Cassian arguably had no morals by this point, having murdered more than his share of people and spun webs of lies so complete and so intricate, the victim never knew what caught them. And worse. He’d done so much worse. He did whatever the Rebellion asked of him, and he didn’t question it. But that…that wasn’t part of his repertoire.

 _Stop it now,_ he thought. _Don’t let it go further. Get control of it. She’ll give you what you want. Then you’ll be gone, and you never have to see her again._

The door opened, and Cassian looked up. Liana came out in a thin robe, rubbing at her long hair with her towel. Cassian gestured at her body.

“It looks like everything hurts,” he said.

“It does,” Liana replied. “I’ve got tomorrow off, but I’m not going to be feeling any better the day after that, when I have to go in again.”

Cassian stood from the couch and went to her. She still had giant scrapes down her right leg from where she’d been dragged into that filthy alley. The wounds were clean, but seeping a little.

“Where’s your medkit?” he asked. Liana jutted her thumb back at the ’fresher. Cassian retrieved it, then pulled over the bench she had sitting in front of her couch as a table. He sat and opened the kit up on his lap.

What he saw inside shocked him.

It was a medkit for a _soldier_.

“I have a lot of bad run-ins,” Liana explained as he paused over the contents. “As you can tell, I don’t always – usually – make the best decisions.”

“I _can_ tell.” He picked up a bottle of disinfecting cleaner and poured it onto a pad. This he gently ran down the length of her scrapes, cleaning up anything the pitiful shower had missed. Blood, rock chips, all came away on the pads he used. He brushed a breathable liquid skin sealer over the length of the cuts, using up the entire bottle.

“Where else?” he asked into the still silence.

“Nowhere,” Liana replied, her voice sounding like she hadn’t used it in a very long time, even though it had only been a few minutes.

“Your back,” Cassian said. “I saw one of them use a baton on your back.”

Liana turned around, her fingers going to her shoulders. She dragged the fabric away, and Cassian watched, entranced, as her skin was revealed to him again. The sleeves of the robe dropped down to where the robe was tied at her waist. She wasn’t wearing a breastband, but she did cover herself. Looking back over her shoulder, she said, “The small of my back.”

Cassian reached out his hands to the layers of fabric separating her skin from his. He worked the robe down just a little to see the bruise that was beginning to grow. And then he couldn’t help it: his fingertips brushed against the injury. Liana reacted, arching her body away from him.

“I’m sorry,” Cassian said. “Did that hurt?”

“No, no,” she said. “Just…”

She didn’t continue.

Then she turned back around to him, her robe already covering her again. “Thank you,” she said in a voice totally devoid of emotion. “I think I’m good for the night.”

Cassian wasn’t. He slid his hands onto her thigh, careful to avoid the wound. He bent his head to her leg and pressed delicate kisses near the deep scratches, knowing that she might flee at any moment. She was that type.

But she didn’t flee. As he kissed her thigh, down to her knee, then slowly up again, his fingertips just barely touching her skin as they drew curving designs that had no meaning, he felt one of her hands slide into his hair. He smiled into his next kiss.

She was enjoying it.

He didn’t know, however, if she would enjoy what he planned to do next, if that would be the moment she fled.

 _Take nothing for yourself,_ he thought. _She has vital information. The weapons will liberate hundreds of people. The Alliance will take another step further forward with what she knows. Everything is for the cause, and the cause alone. This isn’t about you, Andor._

He kissed higher, and higher, and still higher, until he was between her legs, and still, her fingers were in his hair, and still, she didn’t move.

And so he made his own move. He parted her with his thumbs, and he used his tongue in one broad swipe from bottom to top, and she immediately sagged with a groan, like she had never felt anything like this before. Maybe she hadn’t. She was so young still. Young, but older than her years, and she was warm from her shower and tasted so, so good. When her body slid down the wall, her legs opened wider, and Cassian took the opportunity to move in closer to her. Her muscles were solid beneath his hands – it was obvious she was fit – and she easily held herself in the position while he gently used his mouth and tongue on her, still cautious, still afraid of scaring her off. But then he felt her legs begin to shake, felt her body come closer to his even though he didn’t move, and knew she was going to lose her strength.

Her, this strong woman, who could be toppled in this way.

Cassian caught her before she fell, raised himself up slightly so that he could shove the bench out of the way behind him with his foot, and lowered them to the ground, laying back with her positioned over his mouth. Her knees were planted to either side of his head, her legs along the sides of his body. He mouthed softly at her as he slid his middle finger in and out of her, crooking it slightly to hit her perfect spot. She groaned softly as he did so, and she grabbed onto the bench for purchase. Cassian felt her muscles tense up all around him, and knew he was getting her close to orgasm. He added his first finger, increased his pace and pressure, and firmly ignored his own aching need for release, focusing all of his attention on her.

If there was one thing he’d learned from being in Intelligence, it was focus.

Liana’s breathing changed, which was his signal that it wouldn’t be much longer. Cassian kept up what he was doing, biting his lip and glancing up her body at her face. It was tilted down to him, her eyes were closed, and she was biting her lip, too. Dark hair curtained that face, and in that moment, she was impossibly beautiful to him.

A hundred curses screamed into Cassian’s mind then, and twenty different alarms went off. He knew when he’d crossed the line. He knew when to abort a mission and go back.

He’d crossed the line.

But she still had information he _needed_.

She came then, with a loud gasp of surprise, wrenching his thoughts away from the bleakness they’d strayed to. Cassian gripped her tight as she rode it out, and when it had receded, she slid down his body, breathing hard, to rest on his chest. He didn’t touch her again. Didn’t wrap his arm around her.

He knew when he’d crossed the line.

Liana didn’t try to snuggle or cuddle up to him. She just rested against him, and she dozed off after a bit. He figured she must be tired after everything she’d been through that night. Cassian didn’t want to leave her on the floor, but he also couldn’t be entirely sure she wouldn’t break his nose or jaw if he tried to pick her up to move her.

She appeared fragile, but she wasn’t.

He didn’t know what to make of that.

Cassian gently maneuvered his way out from under her without waking her, then went into the refresher to give himself some time away and some perspective. He was breathing hard, too, and he shouldn’t have been. His heart was also racing, but that didn’t make any sense, either. He looked up into the mirror, shook his head in disgust at himself, and looked back down into the sink. There was still blood in it from Liana. He sat down on the edge of the tub, rubbed his hands together, and thought – still trying to ignore the painful pressure of need he felt that had not, despite his best efforts, gone away. He wasn’t expecting anything from Liana, and he knew she didn’t expect anything of him. This was more than he’d bargained for, and it was far beyond his mission parameters. Yes, this kind of thing had happened in the past for information, but so rarely, it wasn’t considered one of his skillsets. There were enough agents who had no qualms about sleeping with a target for information, and they were good at it. Cassian Andor didn’t need to be one of those.

_Spy. Assassin. Saboteur. Recruiter._

_Those_ were his skillsets. Not any of this.

Cassian sighed and hunched over, hands gripping the edge of the tub. He felt…uncomfortable. Not just physically uncomfortable because Liana aroused him in a way he hadn’t felt in a long, long time (if ever, but he’d have to think back about it), but uncomfortable because he shouldn’t be here. He should be back on the ship with Kay, running through information that…he still hadn’t gotten from her tonight.

_Information._

That brought his focus into sharper alignment, and he nodded.

 _You need to get_ something _from her tonight, or you’ll have wasted the entire day and a whole evening on frivolity. Fucking around when you should be working. The Alliance isn’t fucking around, so why are you? You’re slacking, is what you’re doing. All for some…waitress? With a sob story?_ Cassian scoffed out loud as he scrubbed his face with his hands. _Come on, Andor. You’re better than that. You’re better than all of this. You’re letting everybody down._

Cassian felt mentally better after that, but the physical need had only lessened slightly. It took some readjustment to hide Liana’s effect on him, but it was necessary given her distrust of, well, everybody, and men in particular. She didn’t need to see a fully aroused man in her apartment when she had just been attacked by two men.

When Cassian came back out of the ’fresher, feeling more centered, Liana was up again. He opened his mouth to tell her he was leaving if she didn’t have anything new to tell him _(Use it, use it, use it_ , his inner voice said _) especially after that_ , but –

“Do you want something to eat?” she asked before he could say anything. Cassian nodded.

“Sure.”

He watched as she moved lithely around her galley kitchen. She didn’t have much, but she came up with a small plate. Cassian joined her, squeezing in behind her.

“Water,” he breathed. He felt her still in front of him.

“The tap’s not safe to drink from,” she said, her head to the side so he viewed her in profile. “I’ll get you some.”

Cassian leaned back against what passed as her counter, his hands on either side of it, and as she bent over to retrieve a pitcher from the cooler, her backside bumped up against his lap.

It took everything in him not to make any sort of sound whatsoever. He closed his eyes and counted to five, willing his body not to react any more than it already had. Liana didn’t seem to notice.

 _Soon you’ll have all your information,_ he thought, _and you’ll be done. Everyone and everything is a tool to be used by the Rebellion._

That calmed the quickened pace of his heart, and Liana turned to him with a glass of water. He took it and left the kitchen.

“So you called the police,” she said as she brought over the plate. She sat down on the couch as far away from him as she could, hugging the side of it while he sat in the middle.

“I did,” he said. “I couldn’t get to you in time.”

“As you can see, I didn’t need saving.”

“You didn’t.” Cassian paused and chewed. “You know how to fight.”

“A little.” Liana leaned toward the plate and picked up a piece of fruit. “Someone stole from me at the diner.”

“Who?”

“Don’t know that.”

“Someone’s onto you.”

Liana nodded, her gaze straight ahead. “Possibly Hert. I keep talking to you, I get in more danger.”

“You don’t, you wind up dead in an alley at Peets’s hand.”

She nodded again and reached for a piece of cheese. “Either way, I’m dead.” She turned to him and again fixed him with her piercing green gaze. “I need you to get me out of here.”

Cassian shook his head slowly. “I can’t yet. I need your information. I have nowhere to go if I don’t have everything you know.”

Liana narrowed her eyes. “Who are you working for?”

“I told you: my boss.”

“That says nothing.”

“I’m just a merchant, Liana,” Cassian said. “I want Hert’s goods because I want a tidy profit myself. I want out of this dump, too.”

“I see.”

She looked away, and someone not trained the way Cassian was would have missed the note in her voice, the flicker of emotion across her face: disappointment. He couldn’t push her on it, because he was only supposed to be a humble, shady merchant, after all.

“I…could be persuaded,” Cassian said, “to give you a cut, should your information be good.”

Liana let out a scoff. “I’m in deep enough as it is, friend. I don’t need further problems.”

Cassian shrugged and leaned back against the thin couch cushions. “You help me out, get me the materiel I want, I cut the profit thirty-seventy, and you pay more of your debt off. You live another day. What’s the problem?”

Her head snapped to him, fire in her eyes. “I don’t want to deal in black market weapons, okay?” she said. “It’s not my game.”

“What _is_ your game?” Cassian asked, leaning in to her, challenging her. “Liana Hallik?”

He didn’t need to ask, of course. He’d already run her background and come up with a list of petty crimes.

Liana was leaning toward him, meeting his challenge head-on. “I could ask you the same thing. Ky.”

Instead of answering, Cassian grabbed her around the middle and pulled her over onto his lap. She straddled him, knees squeezing him, as his hands curved around her backside. He desperately wanted to slide his hands up her robe and feel her bare flesh, round and heavy, and grip her and pull her to him. Her own hands settled over his shoulders, against the sofa cushions.

“Is that what you really want to ask me right now?” he said in a low voice before pressing a kiss to the hollow of her throat. She rocked into his kiss and moved her hands to the back of his head, her arms twining around him. In response, he flattened his palms to her shoulder blades and pressed her further to his mouth, working his way down her body. She straightened up so that her breasts were near his mouth, and he kissed them through the fabric. He wanted to rip that stupid robe off and burn her skin with his kisses, but he was still afraid of scaring her off. It was too fragile, and he couldn’t let his own wants and desires get the best of him.

 _Stop it now,_ the voice said to him again. _Don’t get carried away again._

His fingers dug into her as he felt himself harden again beneath her, and he released a groan of frustration – not at her but at himself. He scraped his fingers down her sides, and she rocked into him again. The gasp that came from her at the sensation only hardened him further, and his forehead dropped onto her shoulder. His eyes closed again as he fought for control, as he gripped her waist when the heel of her hand pressed down between them, into his hardness.

This was too much. He had to leave.

Cassian straightened up, and he delicately maneuvered Liana off his lap. “I’ll be around more,” he said. She didn’t look pleased that he’d stopped them. Truth be told, he wasn’t very pleased, either. “I won’t let you out of my sight. You won’t be alone.”

“Thanks,” she said shortly, then tilted her head. “The door’s that way.”

Cassian gave her a kiss on top of her head and squeezed her hand. “I’ll be in touch.”

She didn’t say anything, and he left.


	5. Jyn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ky tries to persuade Jyn to leave tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I rewrote this, and I am SO much happier with it. Hope you guys like it, too! 
> 
> Warning: It got a little more pornographic than I meant for it to. Sorry...?

_Jyn_

 

Jyn had the next day off, but the day after that, she had the twenty to four shift. At midnight, when she went outside to the alley for her break, she rested back against the wall and rubbed her forehead. Semmi was just inside the door doing inventory, so Jyn should be safe. Still, she kept her eyes moving restlessly, always on the lookout for Peets’s men.

Something moved in the darkness, and she snatched up the concealed knife she’d begun carrying around.

Ky stepped out of the shadows. Jyn relaxed, her posture slumping down, and sheathed her knife again.

“You scared me,” she said. “Didn’t expect you.”

“I told you I would be around,” he said. He reached for her and pulled her back flush against his chest. His hands flattened on her hipbones, his chin came down to rest on her shoulder, and he swayed them gently back and forth. “Leave,” he whispered in her ear, breath hot on her skin. “Come with me. Tell me everything you know tonight, and I will get you out of here.”

Jyn turned her face to his, bumping into him. “Now?” she whispered back. “Just…go?”

“Get your things from your apartment,” Ky said. “Then we’ll go.”

“I have money inside,” Jyn said. “Not much.”

“Leave it.” He stepped away from her, and she immediately missed his warmth. His hand wrapped around hers, and he tugged. “Leave it. Let’s go.”

Jyn thought about it, fought to find a reason to argue, but her feet backed her up, until she was turning around and following him. He set a quick pace through the neighborhood, until suddenly they were at her door, and he was pressed against her as she unlocked it, and then they were inside. Before she could even begin to pack he was holding her face and kissing her. She pushed his jacket off, and his shirt and then hers were next as she backed up. She turned him around as her hands reached for his belt, and she directed him back toward her tiny bedroom.

Words Jyn didn’t mean to say, stupid words, came out of her mouth before she could stop them: “Do you want me?”

“Yes. Force, yes,” Ky answered in a ragged voice, his hands moving nonstop on her skin, his lips kissing her over and over. “I thought about you after I left, and I had to…”

“I know, I know,” Jyn said, letting out a little laugh. “Me, too.”

They were completely naked by the time they reached her narrow bed.

“Do you want _me_?” Ky asked, and his eyes were so sincere, like he really needed to know if she truly did, that it surprised Jyn. It surprised her that he would even ask, and it surprised her that he even cared.

Jyn nodded.

Ky lay next to her as she lay on her back, his hand between her legs and his fingers already inside her, and she wondered how she was supposed to tell him she hadn’t been with anyone. Did she even _need_ to? She knew what to do up until that final point, and from the sounds he made as she touched him, as she pulled at him, she knew what she was doing. They’d already dealt with the matter of protection, but still, Jyn delayed it. Ky turned over onto his back and pulled her onto his lap.

“Tell me what you know,” he said, his voice a whisper in the dark. “Tell me everything.”

“Why?” Jyn replied, and pushed down against his lap. “You’ll just leave.”

“I won’t. Tell me.” He sat up then, roughly brushing her hair back from her forehead with his palms and kissing her. “You know how badly I want to know. What will it take to get you to tell me?”

Jyn chuckled, and inside, she felt a zing of victory. She’d _won_. “Spend the night with me. Make me come over and over. Promise you’ll take me away from here and not shoot me in the back.”

“I can do all of that.” He pulled her back down again, kissing her hard and long and deep. “I’d never shoot you.”

Jyn smiled and caught his gaze. His hands were still tangled in her hair. “You don’t know me.”

Ky just shook his head at her, a sad sort of smile on his face that summed up exactly how _she_ felt, too. “You don’t know me, either. You might still want to shoot me in the back one day.”

Jyn laughed again. “Is this how you talk in bed? Is this how you make a woman open up to you? No dirty talk?”

“Is that what you like?” he asked. “Is that what you want to hear?” Jyn let him switch their positions so he was over her, and she could feel him harder than before between her legs. “Do you want me to tell you everything I plan to do to you, every way I want to make you come? It’ll take a while, with the things in my mind.”

Jyn hooked her ankles around his legs to give herself purchase as she pressed her hips up into his. “You’re very confident. How do you know my last lover wasn’t more of the same?”

“Was he?”

“Worried?”

Ky knocked his knee between her legs, pushing them apart. “You’ve got a smart mouth, Liana.”

“I do,” Jyn admitted proudly. “Maybe if you’re good, I’ll put it on you.”

He kissed her hard then, entering her only a second later, and the sensation was so new, so different from anything she’d ever felt before, so unexpected and like nothing she could have predicted, that a sound she couldn’t even name came from her throat. He was still kissing her through it, so it wasn’t very loud, and her focus was already away from the noise to what she was feeling between her legs and throughout her body. She could feel his warm skin against hers, feel him shifting above her and moving in and out of her, the pressure perfect and exquisite. Her eyes were closed, but she could feel him moving over her, and she had to look. She wanted to look. When she opened her eyes, she found his already on her. Watching her. His face was blank, unreadable, but he was watching her…very closely. So she watched him back, saw his body moving slow and measured above her, ran the backs of her fingers down his cheek.

“Do you want more?” he asked.

“Yes,” she breathed. “Don’t hold back. I want more of you.”

Jyn didn’t know it was possible, but she felt him slide further into her. Felt his hips connect with hers now. Knew he had been holding himself back. Ky kissed her face, raised himself all the way up with one arm, his elbow supporting him on the other side, and she felt him move harder in her. He gently lowered himself to her chest, but the new pace he set was anything but gentle. His hips slammed into hers, and she let out a gasp of surprise. She couldn’t stop herself from moaning, from gasping, from making noises, loud noises, for him.

“You sound beautiful,” he whispered. “You’re the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Jyn didn’t know how to reply to that in a nice way. It was too…shit, it was too _honest_. It was too _sincere_.

She didn’t like it.

“Shut up and fuck me,” she said.

Jyn’s apartment walls were thin, and she’d been annoyed at hearing her neighbors’ goings-on before, but this time, she didn’t care one bit if they heard _her_. She let the world hear her pleasure, because he brought about so much in her that she didn’t care to hold back. But then he was talking again, and his words made her spiral out of control.

“Do you want me to make you come?” he asked, and all she could do was swallow and nod. Then he pulled out of her, and her mouth parted in shock. Was this normal? Was this supposed to happen? She didn’t know. “Get on your hands and knees for me, and I will.”

Curious, Jyn did so, and she felt him approach her again. He sank into her again easily, and one hand pressed on her belly while a finger from the other – _Jyn gasped –_ slipped into her, right next to him, and slipped out. She didn’t know why until he started stroking her clit, and she felt the wetness that he’d gathered from inside her. A minute of slow stroking began to build her up, and she felt his fingers move faster as her body reacted and her breaths told him how she was feeling.

Then she was close, too close, and she wanted to have some semblance of control but she _didn’t_ and before she knew it, she was coming waytoo fast and hard and she flung her hand out behind her and grabbed his thigh, and her pillow muffled the high-pitched sounds she was making, but nothing could mask the banging of the bed against the wall. He thrust hard into her again and again, dragging the orgasm out longer and longer, _too exquisitely fucking long_ , until she hit the heel of her hand into the wall in front of her, and then a ragged groan from him told her his pleasure had been ripped from him on the heels of hers, as if she’d brought it about.

Ky wrapped his arms around her body and leaned his sweaty forehead to her back as he gently rocked into her again. His stubble scratched along her spine, lighting her further on fire. She couldn’t come down. She felt as if she might never.

Jyn looked over her shoulder. “Did you mean it,” she said, “when you told me to come with you? Or were you just trying to get laid?”

He shook his head, forehead still touching her back. “No,” he said. “I meant it. If you tell me what you know…” He didn’t continue, and Jyn looked away. “I can get you someplace safe.”

“Where is it?” she asked.

“It’s safe,” he said. “Hidden. No one will ever find you there.”

Jyn settled down and turned over. Ky's face was unreadable. “Trouble always finds me,” she said. “I don’t think I’ll ever be safe.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So? Better? I know some of you thought Cassian should've been a little more attentive to Jyn's needs in the last version. Was he better this time?


	6. Cassian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassian thinks about his night with Liana.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter before the movieverse (and a really, really short one at that. Sorry!).

  _Cassian_

Cassian lay in the darkness with Liana later that night after they’d made love again, and he thought. He didn’t think about his mission or his objective or how this was all going to end.

He thought about his name.

Cassian had been undercover enough over the years that he was completely comfortable with it, and he exceled at it. It never bothered him that people didn’t know his name, and he preferred it that way. The fewer people who knew his true identity, the better. That put less of a target on his back. He had no problem going weeks without being addressed by his own name, or even calling himself by it in his own thoughts. He had a few favorite aliases he’d used, some he’d used only once and never again, and none of them meant anything to him.

Ky, he knew, would fall into the latter category. He never wanted to be this alias again. Because right now, all he wanted to hear was Liana call him by his real name, say his real name in a moment of passion rather than _Ky_ , rather than a lie.

What would his name sound like on her tongue?

Cassian didn’t have a problem with lying. He lied every day. He made a career out of lying. But right now, he wished he could speak the truth.

It was stupid, of course. Developing feelings for an informant. He’d gone through extensive training as a spy and knew all about the psychology of war and spy work. He knew he’d developed feelings for Liana Hallik only out of a desire to protect her, protect her _information_. Everything else that had happened afterward had just been a pleasant bonus.

_Now you’re just lying to yourself._

Cassian closed his eyes and let out a quiet breath. Liana had not yet told him everything, and part of him felt fine with that. He was performing as he expected for this type of assignment, so he didn’t feel that he was behind schedule and couldn’t wait another few days for that information.

He could wait. He could definitely wait.

The problem, of course, would be getting her off-planet. At some point, he would have to tell her he was part of the Rebel Alliance, or not tell her, and drop her off at the closest safe system. There was also Kay to consider, who would have to keep out of sight on the ship out of caution. If Liana saw the Imperial droid, that would raise way too many questions.

_This was not a good idea. I should never have said I could get her off-planet, and meant it._

Saying it was one thing. He’d made and broken a hundred promises to get information. But actually meaning one? That was something else entirely.

Cassian felt himself slipping into sleep, and he gave himself up to it. The galaxy wasn’t a safe place, and Mundi Minor was no different, but for tonight, he was safe with Liana, and she was safe with him.

* * *

The only thing Cassian ever heard that night was the chirp of Liana’s comlink, his voice asking if everything was okay, and her telling him it was fine. Just a crazy grandmother who forgot the time zone difference and called too late. He didn’t believe her, but in the end, it didn’t matter.

She was gone in the morning.

So was his blaster, all the money in his jacket, and her bag.

He never knew why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll explain the WHY in the next chapter from Jyn's POV.
> 
> So, in the interest of full disclosure, I’m not sure what I’m doing with the story right now, because I keep going back and forth on what I want to do. For now, I’m leaving off pre-movieverse. I have scenes written through the escape from Jedha, but I am not at all happy with them. They’re a bunch of narrative because I didn’t see the need to rehash the movie or the book, and I just wanted to put in my own missing scenes. I don’t really know if I’ll take this through the movie or not. It’s not looking very likely right now, and my original plan was to end it right after a missing scene before they left for Jedha. But that leaves it on a bad note, so…still trying to figure that out.


	7. Cassian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first meeting between Jyn and Cassian in “Rogue One,” with missing moments. The night before their departure to Jedha.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right, a note as we get into the movieverse: my memory is hazy on movie quotes. Don’t be too mad if I get some stuff wrong! I’m using the book for reference, and not everything lines up with the movie. We’ll see how this goes.
> 
> Also, I lied: I didn’t write a Jyn chapter about what happened in the last chapter, because there just isn’t enough to warrant an entire chapter. But I WILL explain it here.

_Cassian_

What Liana had told Cassian had been good, but not enough for his mission. He’d had to extend it by a week, but in the end, had found out what he’d been looking for. Liana had no way of contacting him, even if she’d wanted to, which Cassian had no answer to either way. Something horrible could have happened to her, or she could’ve left of her own accord because something better came up. He didn’t know, and he’d been in the fight against the Empire long enough to be okay with never knowing. In the end, there was nothing he could really do. He tried to find out what had happened to her, but with a fake name (as he assumed it was) and the obvious fact that she was hiding from people and his desire to not put her further at risk, his options were limited. He never knew what happened to her, but her name always stayed in his memory, even when the memory became distant, buried under so many others. It was one he returned to when the darker ones became too much, when he was alone and the loneliness became too much. He remembered her, and he hoped she was safe, and he wondered if she remembered him.

* * *

_2 years later_

_Ring of Kafrene_

_0 BBY_

 

Knowledge...

_Planet killer._

_Galen Erso._

_Kyber crystals._

It was too much to sort out, but Cassian had something to return to Base One with. Something that made his entire body sing with the thrill of discovery. When he got home, he would start working on it right away. He would follow the various threads, and he would find the truth in all of them.

* * *

_Kestrel Dawn._

_Tanith Ponta._

_Liana Hallik._

_Jyn Erso._

Cassian stared at the holo shimmering in front of him.

_Jyn. Her name is Jyn._

“Liana Hallik” looked the same as he remembered (only more hardened), but her image took on a whole new meaning now. He wanted to go with on her extraction from Wobani Labor Camp, but he had been told not to. Instead, Kaytoo was going, along with Ruescott Melshi and his people.

Two years had passed, and things had changed. "Liana" was the daughter of an Imperial scientist. She had been raised by rebel extremist Saw Gerrera. She was a much more serious criminal than he’d first thought.

Her father supposedly built the planet killer.

_Her father is a tool of the Imperial war machine._

And Cassian had slept with her.

The memories came flooding back again, overloading his senses.

Her body over his as his mouth teased an orgasm from her. Her sweet taste. How hard he’d been that night, so much that he’d gone back to his rented room, fallen to his knees, and immediately relieved the aching pressure, imagining he was buried inside her softness. That next night, _that night_ , the things he’d said, and were they even him at all?

 _“Do you want_ me? _”_ he’d asked. He’d had to know. Why had he had to know? He’d never asked before.

_“You’ve got a smart mouth, Liana.”_

Her response: _“I do. Maybe if you’re good, I’ll put it on you.”_

She had. Cassian winced, remembering her mouth around him before they’d made love that second time. So warm, so soft, so wet, almost as good as being in her.

_“Do you want me to make you come? Get on your hands and knees for me, and I will.”_

_“You sound beautiful. You’re the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard.”_

He’d been playing a role then. Ky. He didn’t have much of a personality attached to Ky, but Cassian _wasn’t_ Ky. He knew that. So had the things he’d said to Liana – he shook his head – to _Jyn_ – been true? Had he meant to say them? Had they been things Cassian would ever say to someone? They were certainly not things he’d ever said before her, or after. He was no saint, but he didn’t partake in anonymous sex as much as he could have. As much as some other soldiers did. But Liana…Jyn…Liana…that was something altogether different…something…

_Special?_

He scoffed out loud as he stared at the holo in his quarters, his arms crossed.

_“Special.” Get hold of yourself, Andor. You screwed an informant. Nothing you did was special. You were probably nothing new to her. She meant nothing, you meant nothing, it meant nothing._

Cassian switched off the image, and Jyn Erso dissipated into the air.

 _“You might still shoot me in the back one day,”_ she’d said.

Well. That one might very well come true.

* * *

Cassian leaned against a partition and stared at Jyn Erso as she was led into the war room. His arms were crossed, and he was sure anything he’d felt for her had burned away to ashes. She'd left that night on Mundi Minor without a word, without a reason, and he still didn't know why.

It hurt.

It burned.

She was a criminal. She was the daughter of the man who built the planet killer.

It shouldn't hurt.

It shouldn't burn.

She looked at him with cold detachment. _The spy. The casual liar._ She knew what he was now. She would just have to deal with it. He didn’t spare her feelings as he interrogated her. Once more she had information he wanted; once more, she was difficult when he wanted to obtain it. When the interrogation was over, she was led away to temporary quarters. Cassian glanced at Mon Mothma and General Draven, who each gave him a nod, and he left in search of Liana.

Jyn.

Jyn Erso.

Not Liana Hallik.

All that was a lie.

He’d assumed her identity was a lie, and it made sense now why she’d concealed it, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.

And he didn’t. At all.

He found her packing a duffel in the small guest quarters she’d been assigned. He watched her for a moment, remembering the few days they’d spent together on Mundi Minor, remembering that night…

_That night…_

“Liana,” he greeted her. Jyn’s movements stopped, but she didn’t stiffen. Didn’t give anything away.

“Ky,” she replied. When she turned around, there was fire in her eyes. Her mouth was set. “I liked you better as Ky.”

“I liked you better as Liana,” he returned, noting her curled hands. “Anything else you care to share?”

“Not a thing,” she said, and turned back to her bag. “You?”

“No.”

“You used me then, and you’re using me now,” Jyn said, riffling through her bag, as if her hands needed something to do. “You got what you came for. You can go. _Cassian._ ”

“I will,” he said. “The sooner this is all over, the better.”

He did start to leave, but she rounded on him. “You didn’t have to do it,” she said suddenly.

“Do _what_?” he spat, regretting the confrontation already. He had enough to do without bothering with her and her problems.

“That night in my apartment,” she said, her entire body vibrating with barely concealed bitterness. And hurt, maybe? Was there any hurt? Or was he just looking for it? “You knew what you were. You didn’t have to do it. You took it far enough, and then you took it further.”

Cassian couldn’t help but sneer. “You were just as willing as I was, _Jyn_. I was going to help you. You were the one who left.”

“You were a lie.”

“You knew that?” he said doubtfully.

“I didn’t need to. Hert called. He’d found me out somehow. He’d also found out about Peets and offered to pay Peets off if I stopped talking to you.” Jyn shrugged. “Seemed like a good deal to me.”

“Did you sleep with him, too? That disgusting boss of yours? To get away?”

“Jealous?” she fired back.

“Never. Have a nice night, Jyn Erso.” He turned away, smashing the memories down hard.

“Does it make you feel good?” she called after him as he stepped out into the hallway. A couple soldiers tossed them curious looks, and Cassian narrowed his eyes at her. “To know you bagged a desperate virgin with a death mark on a desolate planet far away?”

 _Virgin?!_ That new knowledge slammed into his chest, carrying with it a tide of guilt. Again, he squashed it down. He hadn’t known, but what should he care? She wasn’t wholly innocent in this. She’d stolen from him to get away, and she’d had no reason to do any of it. “Don’t make this about me,” he said.

Jyn’s face was cold. Angry. “Do they know?”

Cassian didn’t need to ask who she was referring to. “Why would I tell them that?”

“For someone in the business of information,” Jyn said, “you sure don’t have a lot of answers.”

Cassian just shook his head at her, teeth gritted, and turned away again. This time he shut the door, blocking her out physically and mentally. He didn’t have to explain himself to her. He’d gotten what he’d come for – more information – and he was through. He’d escort her to Jedha, they’d find Saw, and then he’d be done with her. No more, no less.

Simple as that.

 

Night fell over Yavin 4, and Cassian found himself alone in his quarters unable to sleep. There was no reason he shouldn’t be alone, but tonight, he felt it more acutely. The base’s guest quarters for people the Rebellion was protecting or using the way they intended to use Jyn Erso were far, far from the hallway with the officers’ quarters. He was focusing intently on a star chart in his mind, mapping out the hyperspace path to Jedha for the morning, because currently, his body was disobeying his mind.

Despite his anger at Jyn, seeing her again stirred up all the good feelings, too, and she still smelled the same, and he was dying to reach out and touch her again, to feel her skin, her hair, to inhale her and be in the same space as her.

He rolled onto his side and curled his legs up, but that just made his hard-on more uncomfortable. He closed his eyes and ran calculations over in his head again. He would not let her get to him again. Not again. Never again. He had his mission, and it was clear: use Jyn Erso, and get out.

 _Use Jyn Erso,_ he told himself, clenching his fists, _and get out. Nothing more, nothing less._

Simple, he continued to tell himself, as that.


	8. Cassian/Jyn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jyn reflects on Cassian and their time together two years ago while they're on Jedha.

_Cassian_

 

It only got worse from there, after General Draven called him over, told him to ignore everything Mon Mothma had said, and to kill Galen Erso – Jyn’s father. He apologized in a roundabout way for Kaytoo’s behavior, and Jyn took that well, at least. If he was going to be stuck with her for this assignment, he might as well be polite (despite how he felt, and despite their conversation in her quarters).

“Why does she get a blaster,” Kay asked from the cockpit, “and I don’t?”

 _“What?”_ Cassian said in quiet disbelief, turning back to Liana – to Jyn. Jyn Erso.

She was not Liana Hallik. No matter how much he wished she were.

Jyn as much as rolled her eyes. “I know how to use it.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.” He gestured with his fingers. “Give it to me.”

She made no move to hand it over. “We’re going to Jedha. That’s a war zone.”

“That’s not the point. Where did you get it?”

“I found it,” she said.

“I find that answer vague and unconvincing,” Kay helpfully put in.

Jyn’s eyes were on his. The same eyes that had belonged to Liana. Liana who had looked at him like she really saw him. Liana who had said she didn’t need him, but maybe she did, just a little.

_Liana’s eyes soft, warm, and open, below him on her pillow._

“Trust goes both ways,” Jyn said, her gaze steady.

He’d said that to her once. Two years ago. When he was trying to get her to trust him. He never had quite succeeded. He hadn’t really succeeded at much with that mission. All he’d done, it would seem, was make things more difficult for a future he could never have imagined but that had somehow, impossibly, happened.

Cassian gave her a nod, and turned and went to the cockpit.

****

* * *

_Jyn_

 

Jyn woke from dreams of the past in darkness. Ky ( _Cassian._ She’d have to get used to that) and that insufferable droid (Yes, she’d heard every part of their exchange about the odds of Jyn shooting Cassian. The droid was not wrong.) were chatting in the cockpit. Cassian unstrapped, squeezed through the narrow gap between the seats, and came over to her. She put her kyber crystal necklace away beneath her shirt.

Cassian grabbed onto a loop hanging from the ceiling of the ship. “That’s Jedha,” he said, nodding out the viewport. “What’s left of it, anyway. We find Saw. We find your father.”

He began to move off back to the cockpit, obviously considering his duty done for the moment.

The tension was too much. Jyn had been in situations like this, with other soldiers where there was bad blood and they were supposed to rely on one another. It never turned out well. Someone always turned out injured, at the very least. Cassian, who seemed a far worse version of Ky, much more closed off and cold, certainly wasn’t going to break it. He needed her once again, and he would only use her as long as she was needed.

“I meant it,” Jyn called after him. He turned back. Silent. Jyn didn’t say anything else, letting the silence stretch on. The droid’s head swiveled back to them, and then swiveled back to the viewport.

Cassian slowly came back over to her, and crossed his arms.

“Yes?” he said.

“Trust,” Jyn said. The ever-present frown on his face, the years of weariness…had those all been there two years ago? It wasn’t that long ago, but he seemed to have aged far beyond his years. She didn’t know his age – she couldn’t have known it – but he just seemed so tired. So weary. Like he was still fighting because there was no way he couldn’t.

“Okay,” Cassian said.

With that, he returned to the cockpit once more.

They landed on the outskirts of Jedha City and bundled up against the cold weather. Cassian had on a blue parka that looked incredibly warm, while Jyn covered up with a coat and scarf. Kaytoo, of course, was impervious to the weather. The desert wind blew cold across them as they disembarked, and it was even colder when Jyn lay down on her belly next to Cassian to scope out the Star Destroyer hovering above the Holy City.

K-2SO was on her nerves.

It may have been her tiredness or just because it was her peripheral vision, but she could swear she saw Cassian smile, just a little, at something she said. And he didn’t seem the type to smile much.

Kay was still offended, but Jyn didn’t care. She gave him her opinion, shoved her pack at him, and began the descent down the slope.

Jyn kept her silence as she walked beside Cassian to Jedha City. She had nothing to say to him, and it appeared he had nothing to say to her. The memories of those precious few days they’d spent together had been something she’d allowed herself to cherish, but when she’d walked into that war room, and looked over and seen him in the shadows, the memories had collided into her present. She’d watched in horror as he stepped out from the half-darkness he’d concealed himself in, hoping it wasn’t him.

But then it had been. It had been him. And Jyn had not believed in hope in a long time anyway. Two years, in fact. What was hope anyway, but a notion for people who had nothing else to hold onto? Hope was something one had when everything else had slipped away, when one believed there was still good and fairness and justice in the universe.

The universe wasn’t good and just and fair. Jyn knew that. Everyone else should, too.

Cassian sidestepped a large rock, bumping into her. It was the second time he’d done it, and she swallowed down a withering retort of _“Watch it,”_ followed by a thought of, _I really might just shoot you._ She had no loyalty to him. She had no loyalty to the Alliance. Yet here she was again, here the Alliance was again, asking more of her, when she’d put them behind her. They wanted her to go see Saw again, who she had literally zero interest in seeing, and mend things so the Alliance could go fight the good fight and restore justice across the galaxy.

Or whatever it was they thought they were doing.

Jyn glanced at Cassian again. He wasn’t looking at her. She catalogued what he was wearing, wondered where his soft spots were underneath that large parka. Any spots soft enough for a truncheon. It didn’t hang down far enough to cover his knees, so she could take his legs out first if she needed to.

Soft spots…

He had soft spots, underneath that bitter, rough exterior – a shell Ky hadn’t had. Jyn remembered those spots. Her thumb against his neck, before he took it into his mouth. Her hand against his abdomen, lean and hard, belying his small frame. Her lips at his temple, and a sigh from his lips and his eyes closing. Her finger running down the V of his hips into the crease of his thigh.

Yes. He had soft spots. She just had to figure out how to use them again.

The marketplace of the Holy City was teeming with beings and vendors. Jyn stayed close to Cassian, and he to her, probably closer than they needed to be, but his (albeit unpleasant) presence was something familiar Jyn could hold onto during this thing she had to do that she absolutely did not want to do – even if Kaytoo had told her he, the droid, thought it was a bad idea for her to come with _, and so does Cassian._

Jyn wrinkled her nose as the thought crossed her mind again, her arm brushing Cassian’s. If she didn’t come with, who else was going to repair the broken relationship with Saw? _Cassian?_ He didn’t seem the diplomatic type. Although what did she know? He was a liar through and through, and while they had a tentative thread of trust between them, she knew better than to be taken in by him again.

Jyn pressed close to Cassian as they moved through the city. Someone crashed into Jyn, and she turned to see a human male with an Aqualish companion. Cassian waved them off, saying he didn’t want any trouble, and then his hands were on Jyn’s hips, steering her away.

Protecting her.

Jyn filed that away in the back of her mind, and let her anger burn it until it was just ashes.

His touch felt like it was almost constant, and Jyn’s hand would stray to his shoulder, or his arm, without meaning to as they watched the devolving situation in the city. Cassian had a contact, he said, and hopefully that would lead them somewhere.

“Hope?” Jyn said, and she couldn’t help but nearly laugh. Did he really believe in hope, after all this time?

“Yeah,” he said, sounding irritated that she would question it. “Rebellions are _built_ on hope.”

Jyn didn’t believe that, but at least he did, and that wasn’t her problem.

When the inevitable lightfight broke out, Jyn found herself in a narrow doorway with Cassian, feeling him breathe next to her, feeling his body against hers, and she peered out into the fray.

When he shot one of Saw’s people who was about to drop a detonator right on her –

When she looked back at him to see that he’d done it –

When he nodded –

That was when something inside her broke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is basically all narrative. I’m planning on a missing scene after the Eadu fight for the next chapter, and other missing scenes after that.


	9. Jyn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The crew flees Eadu, and Cassian brings Jyn an army.

Her father was dead. Saw was dead. The kyber refinery – Galen Erso’s final resting place – was exploding behind their stolen Imperial shuttle as they fled the sodden planet Eadu.

They weren’t alone anymore.

Now they had Bodhi the defected Imperial pilot (who’d known Galen), and Chirrut and Baze, former Guardians of the Whills, from Jedha. From the Holy City.

The Holy City didn’t exist anymore.

The Death Star – that was its name – had destroyed it. It was like it had never existed at all.

When Cassian had saved Jyn’s life in Jedha City, she’d felt her heart soften to him again, felt the wall of anger and resentment and bitterness crumble. He’d been protecting her again. He still cared. It had made her heart send an electric pulse through every part of her body.

But it couldn’t have meant anything. He was just using her. Again. Like he’d done on Mundi Minor. He just needed her for his mission. For the Alliance. His Alliance. His cause. _All it’s ever brought me is pain._

But…he’d come back for her. When the Death Star had fired on Jedha City, he had come back for her. He hadn’t needed her anymore for the mission but… _he’d come back._

He’d come back on Eadu, too. He definitely hadn’t needed her then. He’d gone to Eadu to assassinate her father, and then his Alliance had sent a squadron of X-wings as backup when their ship had crashed. He hadn't killed her father.

He  _had_ come back for her again.

Except all she knew now was –

_“You lied to me.”_

_“You’re in shock.”_

_“You might as well be a stormtrooper.”_

_“You’re not the only one who lost everything.”_

_“You can’t talk your way around this.”_

Cassian took a step past Jyn and gave her an even colder look. “I don’t have to.”

He stormed away to the cockpit ladder, gave orders to Kay, challenged their innocent companions to an argument, and disappeared up the ladder. She sensed everyone’s eyes on her, but hers were straight ahead on the ladder.

She marched over to it and hauled herself up.

“ – and go from there,” Cassian was saying to Kay. “I think – ”

“I wasn’t finished,” Jyn said. Cassian didn’t look up from the controls.

“Neither was I. Kay, I think – ”

Jyn grit her teeth and bent over to haul him up out of the seat by his arm. “I said, _I wasn’t finished._ ”

Cassian stumbled, regained his balance. Crossed his arms and glared at her. “Well?”

“This is personal,” Jyn said. “This is about you, and me, and what happened two years ago.”

“This has nothing to do with that,” he said, but like at the beginning of their fight, he didn’t sound like he even wanted to have this fight, like the fight had left him. Like he was too tired, too weary.

Kaytoo turned to them. “You served your purpose two years ago, Liana Hallik,” he said in his flat, mechanical voice. “You have served your purpose now.”

“Tell your droid to stay out of this,” Jyn said.

“Kay,” Cassian warned. The droid returned to the control board.

“I left because I had to,” Jyn said. “Remember when the money went missing from my locker? Hert stole it when he saw me getting _friendly_ with you. My money, so to speak, is on him knowing Peets and telling him what was going on. Peets’s bullyboys Revy and Mersado jumped me before you called the cops and got to me. Peets probably had them follow me and then report what they knew back to Hert after I opened my stupid mouth and started talking to you. When Hert called me after…” She glanced at Kaytoo. “He doesn’t know?” Cassian shook his head shortly. “And here I thought he was your diary. After you got what you were looking for at my apartment, Hert called and told me that he knew I was talking to you and that he’d pay off my debt to Peets if I stopped.”

“You already said all that,” Cassian said. “And so what? I still could have gotten you off-planet. You didn’t have to walk away.”

Jyn swallowed. He was so angry. He had every right to be. “He made a move on me that night, after he sent the money to Peets. Said I owed him. That I always had. I knocked him out, stole all the money from the back office, and I ran. He knew where I lived. If I’d gone back home, he would have commed Revy and Mersado and had me killed. He would’ve…” She swallowed again and clenched her jaw. Forced herself to unclench it. Clenched her fists instead. “He would’ve killed you, too.”

Cassian’s lips parted, and Jyn saw all the fight drain out of him as the realization that she had been trying to protect _him_ hit him. “I tried to call the X-wing squadron off,” he said.

Jyn shook her head minutely, not comprehending. “What?”

“I tried to save your father. I tried to save _you_.”

Jyn faltered then, all her fight gone, too. “I guess,” she said softly, “we’re even.”

 

* * *

 

The Council meeting was a disaster. They wouldn’t listen to her, and they wouldn’t fight. _I’m sorry, Jyn._ Sure. Mon Mothma was sorry. So what?

_They prefer to surrender._

Jyn and her new friends wanted to fight.

“I’m not sure four of us is quite enough,” she said.

“How many do we need?” Baze the Guardian asked.

Jyn frowned. “What are you talking about?”

He pointed behind her, and she turned around.

To find Cassian in front of over a dozen soldiers. Her breath caught in her throat. Her heart stopped for a moment. She could barely spare a second to think _What is this?_ before he spoke.

“They were never going to believe you,” he said.

“I appreciate the support,” she retorted.

“But I do,” he replied. “I believe you.”

And then he confessed to her. He _confessed._ Every single thing he’d done, every awful thing he’d _had_ to do, for the Rebellion. All of it. Everything. He laid his heart bare for her there in that hangar, and she knew then that he’d never truly stopped caring for her. All this time, his feelings for her had laid dormant, buried under hardship and trauma and the horrors of war, and, even more so, the conclusions he’d been forced to come to the night she’d left without any explanation two years ago.

Cassian told the soldiers to arm themselves with everything they could find, and they ran off. Then Kaytoo spoke.

“Jyn, I’ll be there for you,” he said, and Jyn’s heart swelled. “Cassian said I had to.”

He marched off, and Jyn’s heart didn’t deflate, not even a little.

Cassian turned away from the droid and came up to her, a hint of a smile on his face. It was probably a trick of the bad light, but she saw – she thought she saw – his eyes dip to her lips, for just the quickest second.

“I’m not used to people sticking around when things go bad,” she said with her own slight smile as she circled around him, and he her.

Then he leaned in to her, too close, way too close, and her mind shot back in time to her refresher in her apartment, his kiss, his touch, his care, and he said, “Welcome home,” and her whole world changed in an instant, and she never, ever wanted to go back.


	10. Jyn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassian and Jyn have a chance to talk in his quarters before they leave for Scarif.

_Jyn_

 

“We don’t have much time,” Cassian said as he shut the door to his quarters behind Jyn, “and we’ll have to make this up as we go.”

“I know that.” She looked around the room, unsurprised by what she saw. It was sparse and impersonal, same as his bag had been when she’d stolen the blaster from it.

The blaster that was in her holster right now.

“You’re welcome to whatever you find.” He lifted up the front corner of his mattress and withdrew a pistol and vibroblade.

Jyn glanced around again. “So this is your life,” she said. “Everything.”

Cassian sent his own glance around the room. “Pretty much.” Then he reached in between the mattress and the wall and withdrew a switchblade.

“I suppose mine’s no different. Well, I had a cellmate for a while.”

“Good company?”

“Terrible.”

That made him smile. She decided she liked that. Making him smile.

Cassian went to a small dresser and began shuffling through it, while Jyn sat down on his loosely made bunk. She wondered when the last time was that he’d slept. Probably about when she had (when had that been?). At the groan of the hard mattress, Cassian turned back to her. He had a couple holdout blasters in his hands, and he crossed to the pile he’d made on the floor and added them, then sat next to her.

“Before we go – ” he started, but Jyn held up a hand.

“You don’t have to do this,” she said.

“Please.”

At his tone, Jyn lowered her hand, and she waited.

“I wasn’t using you,” he said. “Not that way. I didn’t know you’d never been with anyone, and I’m sorry I took that from you. I deserve the anger for my lies, for the hurt they’ve caused you.”

“You didn’t take anything from me,” Jyn said. “And I lied, too.” She forced a smile. “Buy me a drink when we get back, and we can be even.”

He forced the same smile, only he broke her gaze when it came to his face. “Right. Sure.”

Jyn took his hand, resting on his knee. “I wish I’d had a chance to get to know you, Cassian. As it is, I feel like I know Ky better than I know you.”

“I think Liana and Ky could’ve been happy somewhere,” Cassian said. “Some other time. Some other place.”

“What would’ve happened if I had gone with you?”

“You would’ve met Kay, and I would’ve tried to recruit you. The truth would have eventually come out and…. Truthfully, you probably would have run off again, and we would never have found you. And all this….”

“Right.” Jyn realized she was gripping his hand way too hard, and she released it.

“No, don’t…. ” he said before stopping himself. Then her eyes were on his again, and his hand was pulling her closer until his arms were around her, and then she was kissing him again and her mind was filled with the memories of those precious few days together two years ago. His kiss was the same as she remembered, the same pressure, the same intensity, the same taste. Her mouth opened to his, or maybe his opened to hers, but it didn’t matter how it happened. She took his hands and gently guided them to her belt buckle. It wouldn’t be long before they had to be back on the shuttle with their crew, and she wanted to spend every last moment with him.

“Time?” Jyn said as she offered her neck to him.

“Not a lot,” he replied as he kissed it. He took care to unbuckle her belt delicately, as though he _did_ have all the time in the galaxy. His warm breath sighed out against her neck as he kissed the crook of it, and she felt her pants part as he unzipped them. When he’d finished, he removed her vest, and then his hands rubbed up and down her arms. When they reached her fingers, he caressed each one in turn.

Jyn put her head against his chest, her eyes on her own hands as she unbuckled his belt and holster, heavy with his weapon.

“I wish we had more time,” she said.

“Next time,” he said, and she knew he knew as well as she did, that he was lying. There would be no next time.

She put her hands on his shoulders under his jacket. Her fingers slid down, taking the jacket with them, and he shrugged out of it. It was all too slow for the little time they had, but each moment felt like it came too fast. This was so different, _so_ different than before, when he’d been Ky. As if Cassian anticipated her thoughts, he said,

“I’m nothing like Ky.”

“I know,” Jyn said. _I don’t want you to be,_ she thought.

And he wasn’t. At all. He was hesitant, and quiet, and maybe even a touch nervous. Whereas Ky had said perhaps everything Cassian was thinking, Cassian said nothing of what he might have been thinking. Jyn was fine with that, because the past week had been nothing but noise, noise, noise, and she needed silence. His persona as Ky in the bedroom had almost been too much for her, if she had to be honest, but the experience had been exhilarating and exciting all the same. At first she’d been embarrassed, seeing him in the war room and thinking of the things he’d said to her, things that had made her face flame and her body burn. Things that this man, Cassian Andor, would probably never say. She barely knew him – hadn’t really known him two years ago, not really – but how he’d acted seemed nothing at all like him. As she’d spent the last week by his side almost nonstop, she’d wondered more if his bedroom performance had been just that: a performance. Over time, though, the wonder had faded, and she had no longer cared. Who he was, what he was, these were things she knew little about, but what she did know was his actions toward her, and his reality as it related to her.

She would be lying if she said she wasn’t curious about where Ky ended and Cassian began. In the midst of everything going on right now, however, it hardly mattered. Besides, what good what it do to know? They were going on a suicide mission together, and he was here now. He believed her, he backed her, he _trusted_ her. _That_ was what truly mattered. Maybe in the afterlife, she’d get her answers, if she even still cared about them anymore.

Cassian’s hands were warm when they pushed her shirt up and pulled it off over her head, tousling her hair a little. 

_I don’t even have time to take my hair down._

When he cupped her breasts under the band, and his thumbs brushed over the nipples, _that_ she remembered, _that_ was the same as before. He pushed the band up and out of the way, and he bent his head to take her nipple into his mouth for just a moment, before touching his forehead to the swell of her flesh.

 _“Time,”_ he echoed, and Jyn felt the sorrow in her own heart, too, that they didn’t have enough of it. She pulled him down to her as she lay back against the pillow, her fingers drawing his shirt up. He sat up briefly to pull it off, and with some difficulty in the narrow bed, they maneuvered pants, boots, socks, and underwear off, too.

And Jyn was able to laugh – just a little – at the awkwardness of all of it, and Cassian did too, but he didn’t look at her when he laughed. He was shy, she realized, unsure of himself, maybe. Nothing, as he’d said, like Ky, who’d been so brazen and perhaps a projection of what Cassian wanted to be, or an alter ego.

He pulled the covers up over them, even though it was warm in the room. “You still do?” he asked. “Want…me?” He made it sound like he doubted anyone ever could.

Jyn smiled and moved her fingers back from his cheek into his hair. Silky, thick, the same. She pulled him to her and showed him with her kiss just how much she did want him. She wanted him, she wanted _Cassian_ , more than she had ever wanted anything.

He slid into her slowly, and her breath hitched, and all he said was, “Okay?” and she nodded. He was gentle, so gentle, with her, taking his time even though they had precious little of it, pressing his body as close as possible to hers. She closed her eyes, lay her cheek on his pillow, and inhaled deeply as he kissed the crook of her neck. The bed smelled wonderfully of him and his essence and everything that was just _Cassian_. Beyond the door, a group of rebels hurried past, boots pounding on the stone floor, voices raised as they discussed a recent attack and their plans to ship out as soon as possible.

Cassian’s skin was so warm under her palms.

His name, spoken by another soldier passing in the hallway. Someone who was going on the mission with them.

They were needed. It wouldn’t be long now before they had to go.

Cassian captured her lips again, and she kissed him hard, probably too hard, but she didn’t want to let go. His pace quickened, whether because he knew they had to hurry or because he truly was reaching the end of his ability to last, Jyn didn’t know, but she doubted it was the latter given the two times they’d made love before on Mundi Minor. Her heart gave a sharp pang as he pushed harder and faster in her, forcing himself to end their time together before either of them was even close to ready. She held him tight, refused to release his lips, wanted him close through his pleasure.

When he stilled, he simply placed his forehead on the pillow next to her face, and all he said was, “I’m sorry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *points at tags* LEMME EXPLAIN. This story was originally going to end after they met on Yavin 4, but uh…it turned into a longer fic, which means it’s aaaaaa…FIX-IT!!!! So, don’t mind The Sad in here. DON’T WORRY.


	11. Cassian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassian reflects on their brief time in his quarters. First part of the Scarif scenes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I have decided to make this into a longer fix-it with additional scenes/minor plot after the end of the movie. This is the second to last chapter in the movie arc.

_Cassian_

 

The bunk was narrow, uncomfortable, awkward with the two of them in it.

Cassian still found a way to hold Jyn.

He lay on his back, an old war wound biting at his hip, his arm curled around Jyn on his chest. There weren’t words, but there didn’t need to be any.

They had to go in a few minutes. It wouldn’t be long now before their team was ready.

He looked down at her, and she lifted her head. She didn’t smile, and her eyes were serious. He took her chin in his hand, his thumb on her bottom lip, and she gave it a kiss before he slid his hand to the back of her head and tucked her against his chest again.

He let out a breath and closed his eyes, already so, so tired. “Just another minute,” he said.

“Then we go,” Jyn replied. She readjusted in the bed, curling up closer to him. The sheet and thin coverlet were at their waists, and below it, their legs tangled together. Cassian linked his fingers together at Jyn’s shoulder, breathed out again, and tried not to count the passing seconds.

They passed in silence.

It was time to go.

He let a few more pass.

Then, he could no longer put off the future, and –

“It’s time,” Jyn said. She pushed up from the bunk, and his hands fell away. Cassian had a brief glimpse of her naked chest before she bent to the floor and began gathering her clothes back up.

He didn’t move. He was so _tired_.

Jyn turned to him, his shirt, jacket, and pants in her hands. She gave him – she forced for him – a smile. Then she put all but his shirt in her lap, widened the collar a bit, and put it over his head. He thrust his arms through the sleeves and took the rest of his clothes from her. As he dressed, he wondered – he couldn’t help but wonder – if despite their short lovemaking session, Jyn had been satisfied with it. It was a stupid thing to wonder right now, to even care about given the circumstances, but as he’d said, he was _nothing_ like Ky. Did she like that? Was she okay with that? Or did she prefer Ky? Cassian knew his way around a woman’s body, knew all the ins and outs and how to give pleasure, and it was something he enjoyed on the rare occasion he had the chance to partake in it. But Jyn…she’d experienced a part of him no one else had.

He didn’t even know if that part of him was real, or where it had come from. Fantasies, maybe, of a long-term partner he could be honest with, could be truly passionate with. Someone instead of a quick, anonymous tryst in a dark room when the stress and tension of life as a solitary soldier were too much and he desperately needed release and some form of physical contact before he starved from lack of touch. It meant nothing, had never meant anything, and though he enjoyed it for what it was, enjoyed being able to bring pleasure about in a partner when they both had the time for it, the satisfaction he felt was brief. He felt the high of release, the few moments of coming down from it, but every time, he went back to his quarters alone, or his partner left his quarters and he fell asleep alone. Jyn, as Liana, had been the only woman he had ever been with who had meant so much more – anything more – who had – maybe – seen him for him even though he was just a lie and an alias. Her touch had said, _I care about you._ Her mouth around him said, _I want to do this for you._  Not, _I know you need this, and let’s make it quick. Hurry up, Andor._

He wanted that time. If he could, he would go back in it and stop Liana – Jyn – from taking that call from Hert, find a way to get her away from Mundi Minor, find a way to get her to the Rebellion, find a way to do all of this he was doing right now with the Death Star plans and –

The end result would still be the same. They would still go to Scarif for the plans, and it would still wind up the same.

But he would have had more time.

* * *

En route to Scarif, they found their way to the cargo area to discuss their plans. They needed a distraction, a big one, and blowing up the landing pads seemed like it would do the trick. Bodhi would stay in the cockpit, ready to pick them up and leave as soon as they could. Jyn, Cassian, and Kay would infiltrate whatever building the Death Star’s plans were being kept in, and they would…go from there.

Cassian brushed his thumb over the back of Jyn’s hand. He wanted to say something encouraging, but again, there weren’t words for the moment.

There couldn’t be. Because what do you tell someone you know is going to be –

Cassian slammed a door down on those thoughts.

Hope. There was always hope.

He saw it in her eyes as they lit up at the shield gate over Scarif. The shuttle’s clearance codes had worked. The shield gate was opening. He saw hope as Jyn rushed to him in their shared victory. He hurried to step out of her way lest she collide with him, and she stopped a hair’s breadth from him. Her eyes swept his body. He couldn’t stop his from doing the same to hers.

“I’ll go tell the others,” she said quietly, and began to descend the ladder from the cockpit.

Cassian forced his gaze to the viewport and clapped his hand against the support beam he held onto. “Okay,” he murmured to himself, feigning interest in the stars beyond.

He wasn’t okay.

 

The plans were being kept in the Citadel Tower, and the infiltration went off without a hitch. Until it didn’t, and the stormtroopers started showing up. Things rapidly devolved from there.

Kaytoo was gone. Cassian didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye. He didn’t even have a chance to mourn. _Climb,_ Kay had said, and it was all he and Jyn could do to get the plans out. He couldn’t think about Kay, couldn’t think about the fighting on the beach and the friends and comrades out there dying. For him, for Jyn, for the Rebellion.

He couldn’t think about them being trapped on Scarif, with there being no way out.

He looked at Jyn as she clung to the window inside the data vault. _I’m here for you. I’m still here. We’re still here. We can do this. We take the next chance._

She jumped to the vault stack. He followed. They climbed.

When she yanked the plans out, he thought she would fall, and he cried out, “Careful!” and his hand flew out to her. In his mind’s eye he saw her falling down, down, down away from him. He gripped the stacks harder, and they continued to climb.

That was when Orson Krennic and his Death Troopers appeared and began shooting at them.

“Keep going!” Cassian yelled as he provided covering fire. Jyn climbed up, up, as he squeezed the trigger again and again, Krennic in his sights. _You bastard. You took everything from her._

Then blaster fire hit right near his shoulder, and he lost his grip on the stacks.

The last thing he heard, as his body struck two beams on the way down, was Jyn calling his name.


	12. Jyn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jyn faces off with Krennic, the turbolift scene, the beach scene, and a miraculous rescue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the final chapter of the movieverse, and then I'll have an interlude. I'm also going to continue with a short plot after that, and then consider the fic done. Thank you SO MUCH for all the kudos, comments, reads, subscriptions, likes, and reblogs! <3

_Jyn_

After everything, _everything,_ Cassian was gone. He’d died, he’d died following _her_ , and Jyn wanted to give up. The Rebellion, _all it’s ever caused me is pain_ , and now it had taken from her this man she cared so much about, and had indulged in fantasies of a future with on the rare occasion that she allowed herself to.

The man in white had taken him from her. He’d taken _everything_.

 _What’s the point?_ Jyn thought as she stared down at Cassian’s inert body.

Her fingers began to unclench from the stacks. She wanted to be down there with him. It was too much, all too much. She couldn’t keep going.

But _“Keep going!”_ he’d shouted to her. He’d sacrificed himself for her. He’d died for her. He’d died because he believed in her.

She kept going.

 

Jyn aligned the antenna, struggled back to the tower to transmit the plans, and came face to face with her nightmare. The man in white stood before her, blaster out and pointed at her. She defied him, she challenged him, she told him who she was and how he was going to lose.

She waited for him to kill her.

The blaster bolt never came. The man in white went down.

Behind him…

…was Cassian.

And Jyn had never seen a sight so wondrous. It made her heart leap and her vision blank for a moment, and she wanted to dwell in that place for a time unending, in that bubble despite being surrounded by horror. She couldn’t, of course, and stumbled to the comms unit to transmit the plans before rushing to Cassian’s side.

She wanted to kill Krennic herself.

“Leave it,” he said, pulling her back by her hand. She collided with his body, and she swayed. His nose bumped her forehead. “That’s it. That’s it. Let’s go.”

They made their way to the turbolift, Jyn supporting Cassian’s weight as he limped along with her. Once inside, she could do nothing but stare at him in wonder, her arm over his shoulder and his hands gripping her waist. He’d never looked at her like that before. The look in his eyes was intense, adoring, and Jyn’s lips compressed as her heart broke into a thousand pieces. They weren’t going home. There was no returning or going forward. All they had was their past. She could think of nothing but that, and do nothing else but stare into his eyes, memorizing him and wishing for more.

The doors opened to the sand and devastation of the battle. Jyn blocked Cassian’s view so he didn’t have to see his friends lying dead.

The Death Star’s blast lit up the sky in front of them in blinding white, and they collapsed in the sand by the water’s edge.

“Your father would have been proud of you, Jyn,” Cassian said. She smiled at him.

“I’m glad you came,” she replied.

They looked back out at the water, and Jyn took Cassian’s hand. He gripped it back, his thumb sweeping over past her half-gloves to touch the bare skin at the back of her wrist. It wasn’t enough, not nearly enough (it would never be enough), and she turned to him. She leaned to him and wrapped her arms around him. With her remaining strength, she tugged him upright and pulled him close. Her arms went around his neck, and his hand slid up her back, fingers clenching on her shoulder blade. The weight of his chin on her shoulder was reassuring and comforting, and she could even detect a trace of his familiar smell underneath everything else.

They breathed in time together. The wind picked up as the blast approached, and Jyn waited for the end.

She was at peace, she realized, and it was okay. She was with him, and this was a better end than she could have imagined. She could have died alone, unwanted, painfully, discarded, and while she did hurt, she did ache, her heart didn’t hurt, and her heart didn’t ache. They had succeeded in their mission, and they had each other. Cassian held her tighter, and she tightened her own grip on him and closed her eyes.

Then a wind of a different sort hit her, and she thought she heard a whine – the whine of engines? – and distant shouting.

She ignored it. It could only be the blastwave getting closer.

Her comlink screeched, and she jolted.

“I said, if you want to get off this rock alive, let’s go!”

Jyn and Cassian both looked up to see a plump woman in a battered U-wing with the ramp lowered, the ship straining against the high winds. Jyn threw Cassian’s arm around her neck again and shot to her feet. He stumbled, barely conscious, and she all but dragged him up the ramp. It wasn’t even closed all the way before the pilot put them in a steep climb upward and away from Scarif.

Jyn watched out the window as the beach fell quickly away, the blastwave vaporizing where they had just been seconds ago. Cassian opened glazed eyes and looked blearily at her.

She smiled again and reached out a shaking hand to touch his cheek. “You owe me a drink,” she said with as much breath as she could muster.

Then Cassian did the most beautiful thing she could imagine: he smiled back.


	13. Interlude: Jyn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Death Star is destroyed over Yavin 4, and the rebels leave for a new base. Jyn and Cassian start to deal - or try to deal - with the aftermath of surviving Scarif. Jyn reflects on what it means to be home.

_Jyn_

 

The Death Star had obliterated Alderaan. Jyn and Cassian got the news when they were in the medbay recovering.

She didn’t know how to process this news.

This news, or the fact that the Rebellion had, apparently, _lost the plans._

They’d lost the plans!

There was now a guard outside the medbay because of her. Draven didn’t appreciate being cursed out. Nor did his staff. It wasn’t their fault, but… _the Rebellion had lost the plans._ People – friends – had died for their plans, _and they’d lost them._

At least Draven had been happy to see Cassian back alive. Or as happy as Draven presumably ever got. He looked more relieved than anything else, but Jyn suspected he was trying to remain professional.

She had been cleared to leave the medbay, but wanted to stay until Cassian was released. Besides, even if she’d wanted to leave, she had nowhere to go. Her only company was the guard detail anyway. So she sat by Cassian’s bedside, silently keeping watch over him. He was sedated for the most part, and slept the majority of the time when he wasn’t in bacta, but when he was awake, he was groggy, and he mostly just stared at her in a hazy, drug-induced fog. Jyn held his hand, her cheek against his fingers, and she said nothing.

 

Three days after Scarif, the Death Star arrived at Yavin 4. While Jyn had learned that the plans had been recovered and the flaw had been found, she didn’t want to know the details of the battle to take the planet killer down.

So she waited with Cassian in the medbay, wondering if _this_ was to be their new ending, wondering if they’d escaped certain death on Scarif only to die here on Yavin 4.

What were the odds of escaping the Death Star three times?

Not good, she figured.

But then the miraculous happened, and some farm boy from some dustball planet blew the station up, and it was all over. The rebels celebrated, but it wasn’t long before they moved on to figuring out where to go next. They’d always had backup bases in mind, and now they were going to have to make use of one. It was simply too dangerous to stay on Yavin 4 now that the Empire had brought the Death Star to it. Any number of Imperials could know about the rebel base now. So the evacuation began. The sick and wounded were loaded into transports first. Jyn helped Cassian back to his room to pack what little he had (it didn’t take long). Jyn had nothing except what she was wearing, freshly laundered but still in sad shape from Scarif. She carried Cassian’s bag as they made their way through the ziggurat to the hangar, and she helped him board the troop transport. He was considered well enough to sit for a long stretch of time, rather than be tethered to a gurney and hooked up to machines. Still, he’d have to take it easy and get up and walk a little every hour, plus work with one of the physical therapists on the ship.

Jyn technically wasn’t supposed to go with him, as she wasn’t still in the medbay, but Draven had ceased her guard detail and argued the matter with a still drugged but mostly cogent Cassian. In the end, Draven had more pressing matters and bigger concerns than Jyn taking up an extra (unused) seat on one ship over another. So she got to accompany Cassian.

“Any idea where we’re going?” she asked as Cassian fumbled with the seat restraints. He cursed, then said,

“Damn painkillers.”

Jyn didn’t want to embarrass him further by responding, so she simply clicked the restraints into place for him, and then fastened her own.

“So?” she said.

“I do,” he replied, and didn’t elaborate.

“Should I have brought in-flight entertainment?”

“I have a datapad with mission briefs, if you’d like.”

“No, thank you.”

Cassian let out a breath and closed his eyes, tipping his head back against the seat. “Wake me up if anything changes.”

“No, I’ll wake you in an hour for your PT.”

He growled back in his throat.

“How long will we be traveling for?” Jyn asked.

He didn’t answer, not that she expected him to. He’d already fallen asleep again anyway.

 

The answer turned out to be twenty-one hours. Cassian slept for the first half (when he wasn’t doing therapy), though when Jyn tried to give him his scheduled painkiller, he adamantly refused, eventually swatting it out of her hand so that it landed on the lap of a Quarren with a head injury. The Quarren seemed pleased to have it, though Jyn couldn’t tell for sure. The nurse with him just shrugged.

According to Cassian, rebels had been at Dubraal Base on Dubraal IX preparing for the past few days. Once Draven had caught wind of the Death Star targeting Alderaan and the plans going missing, he’d become concerned that the station might find its way to Yavin 4 and had put his contingency plan into action.

This new base wasn’t much of an improvement over the old one. Furthermore, the world was damp, cool, and gray.

“No one will stop here,” Jyn said as she rubbed her hands together and waited in line with Cassian for room assignments. “Good choice for a base.”

Cassian didn’t say anything and shuffled forward in line, his gait uneven. He and Jyn gave their names and were in turn given their lodgings and a map, which didn’t work with Cassian’s heavily secured datapad.

Jyn growled and cursed at the device, and Cassian gave a sigh. “Welcome home,” he said, and at least that made Jyn smile.

 

They eventually found their way to their quarters. Jyn didn’t think her brevet rank would hold up and hadn’t discussed it with Draven, and was therefore listed as just a regular foot soldier and afforded no luxuries. Cassian did think it would stick and told her to bring it up with Draven soon, and she replied that she’d “get right on that.” Although, when she saw she was stuck in barracks with a bunch of other rebels, she reconsidered. Rank, at least, would get her better lodgings. Cassian, however, got his own quarters in the officers’ compound – which turned out to have a less than savory past.

Jyn made a face. “This used to be a _motel_ ,” she said as she looked around at the long, single-story buildings. They were laid out in a line at the back with rows jutting out perpendicularly, and all entrances were private, but outside. “Now I miss the Massassi temple,” she muttered. “I’ve stayed worse places, but…”

“Hold that thought until we see what Command has come up with this time,” Cassian said as he keyed in the code for the door. It whooshed to the side fast enough that it banged into the other side. Cassian walked in and hit the light switch.

Pale white light flickered on overhead, illuminating a dingy room that appeared, for lack of prettiness, clean. The gray carpet was industrial and worn, the off-white walls cracked and faded, the desk chair spindly and the desk surface split. The bed looked like it had once been large in size but sawed in three, which, Jyn figured, it must have been to extend the Rebellion’s resources.

There was also a private refresher. Jyn went to that first.

“It works,” she said in shock as she turned on the taps, then the water shower. “I’ll be in communal facilities.”

“Privilege of rank,” Cassian said. “Another reason to talk to Draven about your brevet rank. You’re welcome to it.”

Jyn didn’t have to be told twice. She shut the door and immediately shucked her clothes as the steam fogged up the mirror. When she stepped into the shower and let the water pour over her body, she sighed.

It was then that she realized she didn’t have the following: a change of clothes, a towel, soap, or shampoo.

This had, perhaps, not been one of her better plans.

Additionally, Cassian might not have meant for her to take his offer so literally.

Still, she enjoyed the amenities for a good fifteen minutes or so and was about to shut the water off when Cassian knocked on the door.

“I got you some towels,” he said through the door. “I’ll just put them on the counter.”

“Thanks,” Jyn called back. The door opened, and she could hear him but not see him with the privacy screen. He was gone a moment later.

Telling herself she should probably not use up all of the Rebellion’s hot water, she turned it off and stepped out. What she saw made her smile. Sitting on the counter was a towel, shirt, and pants. Jyn dried off and dressed in Cassian’s well-worn clothes, enjoying the soft feel of them against her skin. How many times, she wondered, had they been laundered, to get that soft? She hung the towel up and left the ’fresher.

Over by the desk and the single clouded window, Cassian looked over his shoulder when she stepped out, and his gaze swept her body. “Feel better?” he asked.

“I do,” Jyn said with a smile. “Thank you.”

“I got you your supplies, too. There’s toiletries and more towels on the bed. We’ll have to see about clothes another day. Not the top priority right now.”

“Sure,” Jyn said with a nod. She sat on the bed, next to the items, and bent over to roll the pant legs up. When she looked back up, Cassian was setting the datapad on the desk. He came over to the foot of the bed, and as he sank down on it, his right leg gave out and he had to catch himself with his hand and readjust.

Jyn didn’t say anything. But she did look away and bite her lip a little, and she did worry. Between her knees, she unconsciously rubbed her hands together.

Cassian sighed, so quietly she barely heard it. “I’m, um.” He stopped, and the silence was infinitely worse than whatever it was he could have said. “The rest of the Alliance will be arriving over the next few days. Tomorrow morning I’m going to check in with Draven and see where he wants me next. Tonight is going to be pretty hectic – the next few days will be, actually – so we should try to help out where we can. Unloading, getting things set up, that sort of thing.”

Jyn spoke slowly, looking at the wall across from her. “I don’t think you’re in any shape – ”

“Your orders will probably come from Mon Mothma,” Cassian continued, as if she’d never spoken at all. “For now, at least, until you’re assigned somewhere. I’m going to push to have you with me, if you…” He trailed off, and Jyn looked over her shoulder at him. His gaze was on the window, hands gripping the mattress.

“How long are you going to pretend you’re not injured?” she asked.

“I’m fine, Jyn,” Cassian said, but even he didn’t sound like he believed it.

“You’ve lied better to me before.”

His head whipped to her, and his face might as well have been carved from stone. “I said… _I’m fine._ ”

Jyn stood. “You’re not fine. You’re in denial.”

“I’m not your responsibility.”

She let out a cold huff of a laugh. “No,” she said. “You’re no one’s. Right? No one’s but your own.” She crossed her arms over her body and reached to the hem of the shirt. She ripped it off over her head, then pulled the pants down and stepped out of them. “Thanks for the clothes,” she said, flinging them so they landed next to him. Then she turned her back on him, went to the ’fresher, grabbed her own clothes, dressed, and left.

The door banged shut behind her.

 

With nothing better to do, Jyn threw herself into helping get the base into working order. She hauled so many crates and pieces of equipment that by the end of the day, her muscles ached all over, and she’d missed dinner. Feeling absolutely no need to interact with anyone in the mess, she grabbed a quick meal before heading back to the barracks to take another shower to wash off the filth of everything she’d touched that day. She’d had to get new supplies, as she’d forgotten the supplies Cassian had gotten for her in her rush to leave his quarters.

Her face flushed as she scrubbed her body, his name in her mind. She hadn’t seen him since she’d left. He was the only one here she was connected to – they didn’t even have Kaytoo – and she felt alone and bereft without him.

_Welcome home._

A stab of something sharp and painful lanced Jyn’s heart when she heard those two short words in her memory. Home was nowhere for her. Not anymore. She hadn’t had a true home in years. Hadn’t needed one, really. But then Cassian had offered her one, mere days ago, and now…and now…

Jyn slammed her fist on the button to turn the water off, and the hot flow slowed to a dribble and finally stopped. She toweled off and wrapped the coarse fabric around her, then left the stall and gathered up her clothes outside it. She dressed sullenly in a thin shirt and pants the Rebellion optimistically called pajamas, but which she thought wouldn’t withstand one wash cycle. Already she shivered in the cool air, and already she hated this kriffing planet.

Jyn climbed into her stiff bunk and pulled the sheet and single blanket over her. Above her, a snoring Besalisk sagged into her mattress, causing it to dip dangerously close into Jyn’s space. Jyn scowled, but she’d been much, much worse places, and she had her own bed and running water, plus access to regular food, so she didn’t have much to complain about, really.

Sighing, Jyn closed her eyes and tried to get to sleep. Her mind quickly catalogued all the noises around her (she’d already noted earlier where all the exits were), sorting regular from irregular, and while she never slept well, she was usually able to doze anywhere. Her blaster, a beat-up thing the Rebellion had assigned her, lay under her pillow, and her fingers curled comfortingly around the grip. She allowed her mind to drift, let the sounds of the spastic heaters kicking on lull her, and soon, she was able to slip into a light sleep.

She was already awake before the private was even fifteen feet from her bunk.

“Erso,” she said when she saw Jyn sitting up in bed. “Your CO wants to see you.”

“I don’t have a CO,” Jyn said, crossing her arms. The private shrugged.

“Look, all’s I know is he got rank, and I just do what I’m told. So…” She jutted her thumb toward the entrance.

Jyn wasn’t fazed, and she knew it could only be Draven or Cassian. “Care to tell me who it is?”

The private was looking more and more irritated, and Jyn’s bunkmates started to grumble as the drawn-out conversation brought them back into consciousness. “I don’t ask names. Not my business. You shouldn’t ask so many questions, either. Now you going to go willingly, or do I gotta call security and have you written up?”

“Really, you write people up here?” Jyn replied snidely as she turned the covers back and thrust her arms into a jacket. The private didn’t reply, just waited while Jyn pulled her boots on and got up to follow her across the dark room. The door to the barracks hissed aside, and bright hallway lights overloaded Jyn’s vision. She blinked once before her eyes shut, and a moment later, opened them a crack.

“Might want to teach this one a bit about discipline,” the private said. “She don’t listen.”

“I’m aware,” Jyn heard Cassian say, and of course it was him, and she scowled, her vision still adjusting. Once she could see again, he nodded his head down the hallway. Before Jyn followed him, she looked back at the private.

“My ‘lack of discipline’ saved the Rebellion,” she said. “You’re welcome.”

The private just muttered something about rules and sat back down in her seat, picking up her datapad to return to what looked like a game of some sort on it.

For a few moments, Jyn and Cassian walked in silence. When it looked like he wasn’t going to say anything, she said irritably, “I was sleeping.”

Cassian didn’t reply, but Jyn watched him carefully. He walked stiffly, and he seemed very focused on something. What, she couldn’t be sure.

He led her outside into the dark night, drizzling with cold rain, and over to the officers’ quarters. They walked into his room again, and while he went over to the desk, Jyn stayed close by the door.

“I’m not staying,” she said, jacket pulled tight over her chest. “I heard back from Draven and he wants to see me tomorrow, bright and early, so I need to get back to bed.”

Cassian, who had clearly expected her to come further into the room with him, turned and came back up to her. Jyn stood her ground, neck arching as he approached her and she was forced to look up into his eyes. His hand came up, index finger along her jaw and thumb brushing back over her cheekbone.

“I’m lost without you, Jyn,” he said. “And I don’t like being useless.”

“You’re not useless, Cassian,” she said in a gentler voice, captivated by his gaze, unable to look away. “You’re healing. You almost died. Twice.”

She could see it behind his eyes: a hundred things he wanted to say to her, each flipped through, reviewed, discarded, never said. His gaze broke from hers, and his forehead dropped to her hair. His other hand fisted her jacket in his fingers.

“Stay,” he finally whispered. Jyn closed her eyes, tiredness washing over her again, and let herself lean into him. He wrapped his arms around her and held her close, sighing a breath out against her hair, and Jyn held him back.

Was _this_ what Ky and Liana were supposed to have, she wondered? It seemed to her, now, that they were in yet another different place with each other. First had been their aliases on Mundi Minor, then their mutual dislike starting on Yavin 4, which had morphed somehow into respect and a rekindling of their old flame, made physical again because they’d expected to die on Scarif.

Or had it been…something more? Had that spark that had flared up hot and bright between them again been a hint of what _could_ come? Jyn didn’t know, and it was too much to think about. To be given a second chance at life was thought enough; neither she nor Cassian needed other thoughts distracting them, and besides, there was still a war going on.

Cassian released Jyn from the hug and interlaced his fingers with hers. “You’ll stay?” he asked, looking into her eyes again. She nodded, and he gently guided her over to the bed. He pulled the covers back for her, and she toed off her boots before she climbed in. She shrugged the jacket off and let it drop to the floor, and Cassian removed his boots before doing the same. He was still in his fatigues, but was probably too tired to change. He hit the light panel by the bed, and the overhead light turned off. Jyn turned toward the center of the bed to find him on his side facing her, moonlight from Dubraal IX’s large moon reflected in his eyes.

Jyn reached out to lay her hand on his cheek. “You’re always so tired,” she said.

“Always,” he replied. “The fighting never ends.”

“No. I suppose it doesn’t.”

He laid his hand over hers, curling his fingers into the spaces between hers. “Jyn…” he said, but he trailed off and said no more.

“I know,” Jyn said, and that was enough. His eyes closed, and hers did the same.

It was quiet out here in the officers’ quarters. Quieter than in the regular soldiers’ barracks. It was quiet enough that Jyn could almost pretend there _wasn’t_ a war going on, and that tomorrow wouldn’t bring more fighting and struggles. As she laid close to Cassian, she felt his breath against her neck, and she realized…she was home. Because home wasn’t any specific place in the galaxy. Home was a specific person, and as long as she was with Cassian, she would always be home.


	14. Return to Mundi Minor: Cassian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassian and Jyn are sent back to where it all began: Mundi Minor. Jyn and Cassian talk about their past there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back!
> 
> Tying up some loose ends here, purely for fun. Also, I hope it's not too much of a spoiler to share that I AM planning a third smut scene for this part of the story, to make up for the sad one on Yavin 4. That's the only reason I allowed myself to write one that sad, actually - because I planned to write a do-over for them, where they DO have the time. Hopefully it'll be really good!

_Cassian_

 

Cassian hated the process of establishing a new base. The mere inconvenience of it all, the disruption in work, rankled him. This time was no different.

Well.

 _Almost_ no different.

This time, he was content to let time pass a little slower, to let others do more of the work, to recuperate in his quarters with Jyn and just _be_ for a little bit as the Rebellion fell into place once more around him. Jyn had spent exactly one night in the barracks, two days after they’d landed, and she’d hated it. She hadn’t asked if he would share his quarters again after the first night, but she hadn’t needed to. She’d simply just…not left that next night. And things had not changed since. Now, four days after landing, Cassian stood before Draven in a meeting room, waiting on his next assignment. His back hurt, his hip hurt, and his right leg hurt, but he didn’t want to show any weakness and sit down.

His shoulder seemed okay, so that was one bright spot.

Draven sat while Cassian stood. “I want you back on Mundi Minor,” Draven said. “The same players are in play again, and I want you and Erso to go undercover.”

Cassian wore his neutral spy’s mask, but inside, he flinched. Draven knew nothing of his and Jyn’s time together two years ago, other than that Cassian had used her as an informant, but the thought of going back did not sound appealing to Cassian.

“Purpose?” Cassian asked.

“This Peets you mentioned before, the black market gems dealer, he has built up his supply of gems again. He’s working with Hert.”

“My understanding was that we’d put Hert out of business.”

“Yes, in a way,” Draven said. “He’s still got his front with the diner, and he’s not in weapons anymore, but he and Peets now have an arrangement with gems. Rare gems. They’ve become the biggest dealers in their little corner of the galaxy. I want those gems so we can fence them or trade them for items _we_ need.” He paused, studying Cassian’s face. “They’re not blood gems this time.”

 _Donovan would be good at this,_ Cassian thought. _Matreka? Tezz? Why me?_

He knew why him.

Cassian wanted to dig his fingernails into his palms, but he forced himself not to. “When do we leave?”

* * *

Jyn had been dealing with the trauma of Scarif by engaging in a lot of hand-to-hand combat with the other soldiers. Cassian wasn’t surprised to find her flinging another soldier to the mat and standing over him when he entered the rec area. She looked up at him, chest heaving, sweat glistening, a triumphant smile on her face.

She stepped away from the soldier, plucked her towel off an exercise machine, and dabbed at the sweat on her body as she came up to Cassian.

“Not good news?” she asked him. He tilted his head away from the rec area, and they began to walk toward the exit.

Cassian kept his silence until they were outside again and walking away from the base toward the dark forest in the distance.

He wanted to touch her. He so _badly_ wanted to touch her.

“Draven wants us to go back to Mundi Minor,” he said.

Jyn came to a dead stop and looked at him. “Why?”

“Peets and Hert are working together and have a huge cache of rare gems. Draven wants them for the Alliance.”

“No,” Jyn said, shaking her head. “No. I’m not going back there.”

Cassian took a step toward her and lowered his voice, trying to soothe her. “I don’t want to go back, either,” he said. “It’s dangerous and they’re going to be out for blood. But we don’t have a choice.”

“So what’s the plan? We go in as Liana and Ky? I don’t want that.”

“It’s not up to me.”

“Isn’t there anyone else?”

_I wish there were._

“I wouldn’t ask you if there were,” he said.

Jyn crossed her arms and looked away. “I can’t give any more, Cassian. I’ve already given everything, and then some. You have, too.”

He glanced around, made sure they were alone, wrapped his hands around her upper arms, lowered his voice. “But if we do this,” he said, “ _if we do this_ , we can get rid of Hert and Peets for good.”

Jyn looked up at him. He continued on, even though the information was need-to-know only, and he technically wasn’t supposed to be sharing it with Jyn just yet. Draven didn’t know how bad her situation was. He didn’t understand the gravity of it.

“I’ve been given full authorization to kill them if necessary,” Cassian finished. He placed his fingertips under her upturned chin. “I’ll do it, Jyn. You just have to say the word. I’ll take them out.”

She held his gaze just a moment longer, and then she looked away. “Are we leaving soon?”

“In the morning.”

“Then we should get packing.”

* * *

They drifted in and out of each other’s space throughout the rest of the day. After dinner, they went back to Cassian’s quarters. Jyn rested against his chest on the bed, his arms around her and his hands holding his datapad out in front of him as he read over the mission brief again (once more, technically, she wasn’t supposed to be seeing it. Draven would have a fit.). They had already packed.

“We’ll be staying at the Connosan,” Cassian said. “It’s where I stayed before. They rent rooms by the week.”

“Great,” Jyn said in a flat voice. Cassian put the datapad down and dropped his chin to her shoulder. Hesitating a bit before giving the crook of her neck a kiss, he said,

“I mean it. All of them. Dead as soon as we don’t need them any longer.”

Jyn sighed and slumped further back, interlacing her fingers with his at her knees. He squeezed.

“Because this is personal,” he continued, “I’ll do this mission any way you like. I can finesse them, we can surveil them, or…” – here he kissed up her neck to her ear, unable to help himself – “…do it another way. I know how to make people talk.”

“You certainly made me talk,” Jyn said.

Cassian’s lips stilled on her neck and he forced his body not to stiffen, when her words wanted him to do just that. He couldn’t tell from her tone how he was supposed to take her statement. She was not in a good mood, and he still didn’t know her that well. Excuses, lies, words to soothe her rose to his tongue, but he pushed them all back down. None of them felt right. Not with her.

Finally, what felt like too long of a time later, he said, “I know.”

Jyn’s fingers were gripping his far too tight, and she was not moving a muscle. Part of him wished she’d look at him – so he could read her, because that was what he did best, and so he could see forgiveness there, which he desperately wanted – and part of him was grateful that she was turned away. Because what _did_ she hold in her eyes right now? All he knew was what they’d been through over the past two and a half weeks, through all their battles, through Scarif, and her eyes in the turbolift. Now that they were going back to Mundi Minor, though, and all those memories were coming back, she might not feel so charitable.

“Was any of it real?” Jyn asked into the silence. Her voice was neutral, completely devoid of any emotion whatsoever.

Cassian fell back on his Intelligence training and stalled for time. _Keep her talking._

“Any of what?” he asked.

He hated himself for treating her this way, but truthfully didn’t know anything else. What did _he_ know about relating to a woman in a relationship? Or, well, whatever he and Jyn Erso were supposed to be in.

 _If anything_ , he told himself. _Stop being childish. You don’t deserve her. You never have. You never_ will _._

“You know very well what I’m talking about,” Jyn said.

Jyn wasn’t stupid. Cassian knew that, too. They were equally matched that way, among a hundred other ways. _You can’t talk your way around this._ Jyn had barely known him when they’d fled Eadu, and yet she’d easily seen through his angry words and his deflections.

_I don’t have to._

That had been his response then. A similar one – and half a dozen more – perched on Cassian’s tongue again. His fingers slackened around Jyn’s.

_I don’t have to explain myself._

_I was doing my job._

_It’s not important._

_None of it matters now._

_Why do you want to know?_

_Why do you_ need _to know?_

_We have a mission to prepare for._

_That’s none of your business, soldier._

The moment seemed to stretch on too long, again, just like the previous moment. Cassian closed his eyes briefly and felt his chest constrict – felt _anxiety_ , of all things – as he felt distance begin to push itself between him and Jyn. As he felt his chance with her slipping away.

_You will never find someone like her again, Andor. You could search the entire galaxy the rest of your life, and you would never find another one like her. No other exists. There is only her, and she is here with you now. Don’t. Mess. This up._

Cassian swallowed. Tried to force his stupid heart to slow down.

He chose to go with honesty.

“Yes,” he said. “It was real. In a way. I…I wasn’t Ky – I’m not like that – but the way I felt – my feelings towards you – those were real. That was all real.” His voice failed him, and it went quieter. “I didn’t pretend there, Jyn.”

“Have you ever?” she demanded. “In the past?”

This was a nightmare. One he never thought he’d have to live through.

“A couple times,” he answered. “For information.”

“So, same as what you did with me.”

 _“No,”_ Cassian replied, his voice way harsher than he meant for it to be. “Those were assignments. Imperials, targets, whatever they were, women Draven set me up to – ” He stopped and let out a breath. “I didn’t want to do it. But it didn’t matter.” He forced his voice to lower again, to gentle. “Everything I did, I did for the Rebellion,” he said, echoing his own words to her in the hangar before Scarif. “Except Mundi Minor. I did that for you, and for me. I needed the information, yes, but I didn’t expect what happened between us to happen. I hated myself for it. I still do. I knew I’d gotten carried away and crossed the line.”

Jyn didn’t speak for a moment. She was still very still, still facing away from him. Still leaning back against him, though, her presence warm and solid. Her fingers had relaxed around his, but she was still holding onto his hands. “But?” she prompted gently.

Cassian was dying to wrap his arms around her, to pull her tight against him, to bury his face in her hair and admit that he’d already fallen in love with her during the two weeks they’d spent together on Yavin, Jedha, Eadu, and Scarif. Admit that when he looked at her in that turbolift, he hoped she knew.

“But,” Cassian said slowly, wrestling the words out of his head and into his throat, “it was…you.”

Jyn released his hands and turned to face him. Cassian looked up at her, to see her smiling at him, her face gentle, eyes kind.

“Cassian,” she said, and pulled him to her.

It was a long time before she let him go.


	15. Return to Mundi Minor: Jyn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jyn and Cassian begin their mission on Mundi Minor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a little short chapter here to start the mission off. Only a couple chapters left to go.

_Jyn_

 

The Connosan boasted very little in the way of creature comforts, but it was a step up from Dubraal Base. Cassian shrugged when Jyn glanced at him, and she knew he had to know what she was thinking.

It wasn’t the same room he’d been in before, but he said it was the same layout. Jyn wandered through the small living room and kitchen and back to the bedroom, imagining Cassian coming back after talking with her two years ago. Spending his nights alone, or going back to Kaytoo on his ship, probably, or –

_“Do you want me?”_

_“Yes. Force, yes. I thought about you after I left, and I had to…”_

Ky’s words to her before they’d made love the first time – _her_ first time. Jyn glanced over at Cassian, already focusing intently on scanning the room for bugs, and she smiled just a little. It was hard to reconcile this image of him before her – dour, serious, the consummate professional and perfect soldier – with a man who’d been so taken with her that the minute he’d gotten back to his room and had a private moment to himself, he’d fallen to his knees and had to relieve his sexual frustration.

 _He’s only human,_ she thought.

It might not hurt Draven and the rest of the people who demanded so much of him to remember that.

Cassian was talking, but Jyn wasn’t listening. He caught her staring. “What is it?”

Jyn blushed and quickly looked away. “Nothing. What were you saying?”

Cassian’s face shifted to concern. “Something bothering you? The room’s clean. I did a double sweep of it.”

“No, that’s good. Good.”

He frowned. (More than usual, rather.)

Jyn swept her hand out toward the bedroom. “What are the sleeping arrangements? Draven doesn’t expect us to bunk together, surely.”

“There’s only the bed and the couch,” Cassian said, nodding at it. A small smile played on his lips, as if he knew she was thinking about something embarrassing, and he looked back at her. “You want to take it, or shall I?”

Jyn quirked an eyebrow at him. “I have no problem sleeping alone, if you want to be that way and pretend we’re not going to share. You have a tendency to smother anyway.”

“You elbow.”

“Because you give me no space to sleep.”

Cassian _almost_ laughed and went over to his duffel, crouching down to stow his gear. “I’m not really used to sharing a bed. I can count on one hand the number of times I have.”

“Really, you kicked women out and didn’t let them spend the night?” Jyn asked as she crossed her arms and leaned against the doorjamb. “I would’ve expected better manners from a spy.”

“They weren’t all that eager to extend the experience.”

Jyn looked at him a second longer – he wasn’t looking at her, though – before looking away and giving a snort to cover up the flash of emotion she’d felt at his words. She couldn’t easily identify the emotion, but it…hurt. Her. For him. She glanced around the room, avoiding looking at him again. “That’s not terribly gracious,” she said. “I’m not used to sharing a bed myself, actually.”

Cassian looked up, his face unreadable. “I wasn’t your only, was I?”

“No,” Jyn said. “Of course not. Only insecure one, though.”

He smiled again and zipped up his bag.

They’d gotten planetside late, so they wouldn’t be starting on their mission until the morning. They settled into an easy silence that night, and when they went to bed, that was easy, too.

It had become comfortable already, and that scared Jyn far more than anything else.

Anything, that was, besides losing Cassian.

* * *

The Boiling Pot looked almost the exact same as it had two years ago, except more rundown. When Jyn walked in, she brightened to see her old friend Semmi still working there.

Semmi brightened, too.

“Liana!” she cried, running out from behind the counter and throwing her arms around Jyn (who stood there awkwardly, unsure of what to do with the gesture). Semmi stepped back, beaming, and then looked over at Cassian. “This must be your Festian boyfriend. Kurdan and I are married now.”

“That’s great news,” Jyn said. “This is Ky.”

“Hi,” Semmi said. “Thank you for keeping Liana safe. We were so scared when she left all of a sudden. We thought…well. At least it didn’t come true.” She glanced around, then lowered her voice. “You might want to leave before Hert sees you, though. He was furious when you left.”

“I’m quite aware,” Jyn said. “Listen, would you be able to talk after your shift? I’d love to catch up. Just us, though.”

“Yes, of course. I get off at sixteen hundred.”

“Great. Meet us over at Yves. Basement.”

Semmi nodded. “See you then.”

 

At 1615, Semmi walked into the lounge’s basement. Jyn sat at a table by herself, though Cassian stood in the shadows out of sight. Semmi gave Jyn a broad smile and opened her mouth to speak, but Jyn cut her off right away.

“I don’t want anyone to get suspicious,” she said as the other woman sat, “and you might have been followed.” Semmi frowned. “Do you know who Hert truly is?”

Semmi opened her mouth again, hesitated, closed it. Jyn nodded.

“Thought so. We’re here to take him out.”

Semmi shook her head. “I don’t know how I can help you with that. I can’t risk it.”

“I know,” Jyn said with a nod. “Ky and I can get you and Kurdan out of here if you help us. If you want to. You’ve been around Hert this whole time. There’s got to be something you can give us.”

Her friend considered. “I’ve heard a lot,” she said slowly. “Same as when you were here. But, Liana…the men who came after you…they’re regular at the diners now.”

Jyn raised her eyebrows. “Revy and Mersado?” Semmi nodded. “Don’t worry about them. Ky and I will make sure you and Kurdan are protected. We just need to find a way to get Hert and Peets – the gems dealer I stole from two years ago, who Revy and Mersado are working for – together somehow, and make sure they’re not a problem anymore.”

“Hert leaves every week on the same day at the same time,” Semmi said. “We never know where he’s going or when he’s coming back. I always assumed he was doing something shady. Tomorrow is the day he’s going to do it. He always leaves at twenty-two hundred.” She shrugged. “Maybe it’s nothing, but…maybe it’s something.”

Jyn nodded. “That’s good. What else?”

Semmi hesitated again, then sighed and settled back in her seat. She called the waiter over, ordered a drink, and then she began to talk.


	16. Return to Mundi Minor: Jyn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jyn and Cassian bug Peets's jewelry shop, and then have a difficult discussion back in their room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be perfectly honest with you guys: the point of all these scenes is just to give Jyn and Cassian a final, happy love scene as them (not their aliases) and give them a HEA. The so-called "plot" of all this is just a vehicle for it. One more chapter after this (believe it or not).

_Jyn_

 

Semmi gave Jyn as much information as she could, though she was reluctant and worried – as she had every right to be. Kurdan had waited for her at the entrance to Yves, and Jyn and Cassian walked the two of them home. They staked out the couple’s apartment for a good hour before deciding they had not been followed and were safe, and headed back to the Connosan.

Cassian scanned the room again for bugs, then put his scanner away when it was clear.

“My credits are on Hert leaving to speak with Peets each week,” Jyn was saying as he was packing the instrument up. “We follow him, we find Peets…unless he’s just going to Peets’s jewelry shop, and I already know where that is.”

“Might be a good idea to bug it,” Cassian said, digging around inside his duffel and pulling out a small box with surveillance equipment. “I’ll go over and plant the bug now, start gathering the audio, and see what happens.” He pocketed the pack and stood again.

“No holo?” Jyn asked as Cassian headed toward the door. “Wait…you can’t think I’m going to stay here.”

“No holo,” Cassian said, “and yes, I do.”

Jyn slowly shook her head, already starting to fire up for an argument. “Don’t do this, Cassian.”

“Peets knows you. It’s too much of a risk.”

“Well,” Jyn said, bending over to her bag and straightening with a decorative scarf and dark glasses in her hands, “it’s a good thing I brought a disguise and plan on staying out of sight.”

Cassian’s lips pressed into a thin line, and his eyes stayed on hers, but he didn’t say anything. Jyn draped the scarf around her head and neck and perched the glasses on her head. “Ready?”

For another moment, Cassian kept his eyes on her. Then he opened the door and left the room without a word, and Jyn followed.

 

This weather was warm, but Jyn’s decorative scarf fit into the native wear and didn’t stick out in an obvious way. She and Cassian didn’t talk as they made their way over to Peets’s jewelry shop. Once they were a few blocks away, Jyn let her pace lag until he was a good block ahead of her, and she crossed the street to take up position at a building diagonal from Peets’s. She leaned casually against it, datapad out, feigning interest in the news that she’d pulled up on it. Behind her dark glasses, her eyes scanned the area at regular intervals.

A double-click on her comlink came through fifteen minutes later. It meant Cassian was finishing up inside and she should leave her position and head back to the Connosan. Jyn glanced around the area once more, didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, and stowed her datapad. Then she walked through the alleyway to the next street over, and did her best not to look suspicious.

She was terrible at this spy stuff.

 

Jyn didn’t see Cassian again until over an hour later. He’d decided to go back to The Boiling Pot again – he figured Hert probably wouldn’t remember him – and conducted some surveillance there before coming back to the room. He hadn’t learned anything interesting (or at all, really), but he had brought Jyn food.

“Oh, good, I missed the food from that place,” she commented as she opened the box.

“Next time I’ll stop by the ship and bring you ration bars,” Cassian replied as he passed her on the way to the refresher. His tone betrayed nothing, as usual, but Jyn immediately felt a twinge in her gut. She wasn’t trying to be ungrateful; that wasn’t what she’d meant at all.

“I didn’t mean that,” she said, but Cassian held a hand up.

“My datapad is crunching the audio from the jewelry shop,” he said. “It’ll give us reports every half hour and highlight anything of interest. That’s all we can do for now. I’m going to take a shower. Look over the last few reports, please, while I do.”

The ’fresher door shut, and a few minutes later, the shower started up. As Jyn ate and reviewed the current reports, guilt and discomfort twisted in her gut. She had thought things would be easier after they survived Scarif. It seemed she’d been wrong. Now Cassian was treating her like an ordinary soldier.

Jyn finished her meal and cleaned up after herself. Cassian came out of the ’fresher in his sleep clothes, carrying his blaster. He set it on the low coffee table and sat down on the couch, picking up the datapad that Jyn had set down. Wordlessly, she passed him to go into the ’fresher herself for her shower, dropping her bag off in the bedroom as she went.

When she came back out fifteen minutes later, Cassian was still looking at the datapad, frowning.

“I didn’t see much,” she said, taking a seat next to him. Her knee bumped his, and she left it there. He didn’t move his leg. “Just a bunch of regular shoptalk.”

“That’s all I’m seeing, too.” Cassian leaned forward, leg sliding against hers as he did so, and set the datapad down on the table. Then he settled back against the couch cushions and rubbed his eyes. “Tomorrow night should be better, if Semmi’s information is good.”

Jyn frowned. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“It’s always a risk with informants,” he said. “Plus, her information could also mean nothing.”

Jyn didn’t reply, and instead crossed her arms and leaned back with him. Her entire right side was pressed up against him, and it felt too warm. She remembered the moment earlier, when he’d brought her food and she’d given him that sarcastic reply.

She looked over at him. His eyes were closed, and his arms were slack at his sides. “Thank you for the food,” she said. “Really.”

Cassian didn’t open his eyes. “You’re welcome.”

Jyn looked down, studying his hands. Those same hands had been all over her body two years ago, and even more recently, before they’d left for Scarif almost a week ago. A zing went through her, shooting straight to her core when the memories whirled through her mind, bringing with them a quick tide of emotion…and confusion.

Truth be told, she didn’t know how to handle this, and, it seemed, neither did Cassian. They weren’t people who talked about their feelings or emotions, never having been raised in an environment where that was encouraged. That part of them was perhaps shut off permanently. They were more tactile, showing how they felt through touch and gestures. They also showed emotions through actions. All in all, they were just nonverbal people when it came to this sort of stuff.

Unfortunately, that made wherever they were at right now with each other very, very difficult.

They didn’t die on Scarif like they expected to. When they’d slept together before leaving, they’d expected that to be their last time. They hadn’t expected to have more time together. Or any time together. When it had happened, it...surprised Jyn, at least. It confused her. She didn’t know how Cassian felt about it, probably would never know, and even though she could see through him and read him probably better than anyone else, on this matter, she could see nothing.

“What do we do tonight, then?” she asked into the heavy silence.

“We wait,” Cassian answered. “A lot of Intelligence work is waiting.”

“Do you think Draven will keep us together?”

Cassian shrugged, his eyes still closed. “I don’t know. What we did was unsanctioned by the Alliance, but I don’t think they’re going to just disregard it. We accomplished the impossible, and I think they’ll want to leverage it.”

Jyn nodded, though he couldn’t see. “That’s good, I suppose.”

“Yes.”

This was too much for her, too awkward, too uncomfortable, so she got up from the couch. She was nearly shaking with nervous energy, and she had to get it out.

“I’m going to go for a run,” she said.

Cassian finally opened his eyes and looked at her. “Now?”

Jyn clenched her fists. “Yes, now. Is there a problem?”

He gestured at her sleep clothes. “No, it’s just…you’ve already changed for bed.”

“I can change back.” She turned and strode to the bedroom, yanking the halves of her duffel apart and thrusting her hands inside. Cassian’s footsteps came up behind her, and his hands slid onto her shoulders. The touch sent a shockwave through her.

“Jyn, what is it?” he murmured. Her hands kept moving restlessly in the bag, turning clothes and items over and over. She shook her head, unable to put words to her thoughts for a few moments. Cassian waited, and she could feel his body close to hers.

“We almost died on that beach,” she finally said. “I can’t stop thinking about Chirrut and Bodhi and Baze and – ” She stopped short. She couldn’t say Kaytoo’s name. Not to Cassian. “Two years ago, and then that, and now…”

He sighed a long breath out, so close to her that Jyn felt his breath on her hair. He understood what she was saying, despite her saying none of it. His hands slid down to her biceps and gripped them, and he gently pulled her the short distance back to his body.

“There is not a single thing I’ve done,” he said quietly, “that makes me deserving of what you give me. I have not been kind. I have not been good. I’ve murdered and lied and shot people in the back and a hundred other things you’ll never know – ”

“You already told me,” Jyn said, stepping away and turning around. His mask was gone, leaving only bare truth underneath. Pain was on his face. “You told me, Cassian,” she repeated in a quieter voice.

“I haven’t loved anyone since I was six,” he continued. “I haven’t even cared about anyone I’ve slept with. I’ve only felt attracted to them, for a night, an hour. I even had to leave one woman behind three hours after I’d – ” He cut himself off and looked down, but Jyn had already glimpsed shame on his face before he hid it away. He took a breath. “What kind of person does that make me, Jyn?”

She didn’t answer for a moment, letting him take a break from the pain that was raging through him right now.

“The kind of person I’d want fighting by my side,” Jyn said after a minute. “Loyal. Competent. Trustworthy. Dedicated. You’re a good person, Cassian. You just can’t see it. You never will. And you _have_ cared,” she added in a gentle voice. “You cared about me. At least I think you did.”

“I did. I do.”

Jyn stepped up to him again, and she wrapped her arms around him. He reciprocated immediately, holding her tight and laying his cheek on top of her head.

“You need to rest,” she said. “We’ll have enough to do tomorrow.”

Cassian let out a breath again, and he held her tighter.


	17. Return to Mundi Minor: Cassian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The mission is a success, and Jyn and Cassian finally get their time alone together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter. Finally. I can’t believe this is done! Took me forever to finish up that final chapter. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who's read this!! You guys are fantastic!! <3

 

_Cassian_

 

Unsurprisingly, Hert did, indeed, head straight toward Peets’s jewelry shop the next day at 2200. He stayed there past midnight, Jyn and Cassian in the shadows across the street listening to the conversation via Cassian’s surveillance equipment. When Revy and Mersado approached the building, Jyn and Cassian immediately sprang into action.

“Hello,” Jyn said from behind them. The bullyboys gave a start and turned, and when they saw her, they gaped. She hit them both in the stomachs with her truncheons, and they doubled over. Cassian had his blaster on them, and when they straightened up, Jyn already had hers on them, too.

“What do you want, Liana?” Revy asked with a glare. Jyn tilted her head toward the door.

“A chat with your boss,” she said. “Let’s go.”

They entered the building, Jyn and Cassian close behind them, and walked to the back to a filing cabinet that doubled as a secret doorway. They passed through to a small room, where Peets and Hert were deep in conversation. Jyn stepped into the room with a smile and her blaster still held up.

“Nice to see you both,” she said. “I’m here for your gems again, Peets.”

He scoffed, unaffected. “You still owe me for the last time.”

“I have no intention of paying you. In fact, I plan on putting you out of business.” She gestured with her blaster for him to get out of his chair. “Let’s go. I know you have a safe here somewhere. I want everything you have, plus all your contacts and records, and then we’re going to light this place up.”

“And us?” Hert asked.

“Don’t worry, we have plans for you as well. Let’s get going.”

As Peets led her over to his safe, hidden behind another false cabinet, Hert said, “You’re much more confident now, Liana. When did you learn to hold a blaster?”

“I’ve always known,” she said, keeping an eye on all the men at one time. “I just played dumb for you. It’s in your best interest not to test me.”

Peets got the safe open and began handing data disks and bags of gems over, which Jyn stored in the pack on her back. Cassian didn’t miss the significant looks Peets was throwing over his shoulder at his bullyboys, and he saw their bodies coil for action.

His and Jyn’s eyes had already met anyway, and they already knew what to do.

Revy leapt at Cassian and Mersado charged at Jyn. Both were shot dead in seconds. Peets’s hands stilled on the gems, his mouth going slack. Jyn turned her blaster back to him.

“Anything else you’d like to try?” she said. He just shook his head and returned his attention to the safe.

Once it was emptied, she took point in front of Hert and Peets while Cassian took the rear, leading the crooks out of the shop. Their plan was to stun them, put their bodies in the closest speeder they could hotwire, and drive them as far out of town as possible and dump them.

However, both Jyn and Cassian thought that plan was probably a longshot, and were ready for the men to do something really stupid.

Which they did.

Hert, behind Jyn, hooked his foot around her ankle and yanked, causing her to stumble but not go down, catching herself and regaining her balance at the last minute. Cassian shot him in the head and he dropped, while Peets took off running.

Jyn’s blaster bolt took him out a moment later.

They’d barely made it more than a handful of meters away from the shop.

Once the bodies were out of sight in an alley, Jyn and Cassian returned to the building, plundered it of the remaining jewels and records, and then doused it in an accelerant. They stepped outside into the warm night air, and Cassian touched a flame to the liquid.

They didn’t stay to watch the building become engulfed. By the time they were back at their room, emergency services still hadn’t been called.

 

Cassian scanned their room and found it clean of bugs again, and he began packing up what little they’d left out. He’d learned long ago to live out of a bag and replace everything he’d taken out right back in it when he was done with it, for quick getaways. Jyn, it seemed, had learned the same, and he wasn’t surprised. She was gone right now, and it made him uncomfortable. He had wanted to leave right away. Their mission was successful, so there was no reason for them to stick around.

However…

_However…_

Jyn couldn’t leave her friend Semmi and her husband Kurdan behind, and had gone to get them.

Cassian remembered a moment not too long ago, when Jyn had saved a little girl from fighting in a holy city far away. A city that no longer existed except in the memories of those who had been there.

Cassian zipped up his well-worn bag and ran his hand over the zipper. It was the same one he’d taken with him to Jedha – the same one he’d had for years – and he wondered how many more missions he’d take it on.

A series of short knocks came at the door, and he immediately went on high alert, hand dropping to his blaster. But it was only Jyn, of course, and he knew it would be her. It was the knock sequence they’d planned out, even. Still, he was a trained soldier, and even when instinct told him otherwise, he would always react this way. He would never lose those old habits. He wondered, idly, if he’d ever feel safe. He wondered, too, if he’d ever not feel tired.

“All good?” he asked when Jyn had joined him in the bedroom.

“All good,” she said, lowering her scarf from her head. “They’ll meet us in a couple hours.”

Cassian nodded. “Good. That was kind of you.”

“Yes, well. She doesn’t deserve this life. No one does. She’s lived it long enough,” she added quietly.

Cassian came around the bed and ran his hands up and down her arms. She looked up at him. “We go home, we rest a bit, and we get our next assignment.”

“Life goes on,” Jyn said. Cassian nodded, still looking into her eyes. Her hands reached out to him and settled on his biceps, fingers curling around to hold them.

She wouldn’t look away. Neither would he.

Cassian hesitated – there was so much to lose – but then he bent his head slowly down to hers. She responded by stretching hers up to his and lifting up onto her toes, and finally, his lips met hers again.

And then he kissed her over and over again, and he couldn’t stop. He didn’t even want to.

His hands were on her face and in her hair, and she was gripping his arms tight. Already he was out of breath, after only a minute. One of Jyn’s hands reached down between them and pressed between his legs, where he was already getting hard for her. A sound, almost one of pain, came out of his mouth, and then he quickly sucked air back into his lungs. Jyn’s other hand fisted the collar of his jacket at the back of his neck, while the fingers of her hand below rubbed in short movements, up and down. He hardened further under her touch, and it hurt, _fuck_ , it hurt, and it brought to mind the times in the past two years when he thought about her with his hand on himself, stroking hard to release that ache that only her body could soothe.

Her hand moved up to the top of his pants, and then slid down again inside, into his underwear, to wrap her hand around him. Cassian groaned and stopped kissing her, his hands flying to her jacket, clutching it tight, desperate to hold onto something. His forehead dropped to the top of her head, and his breath seized up in his chest. Jyn withdrew her hand, and then she unbuckled his belt and holster and unzipped his fly. Cassian watched, open-mouthed and helpless, his heart beating too hard and loud and fast, as she slowly sank to her knees, taking his pants and underwear along with her, her jacket sliding out of his fingers as she went.

When she took him into her mouth, he fell back a step against the bed, and his hands gripped the edges of the mattress tight. It was far from the best blow job he’d ever received, but it didn’t matter, because it was _her_ , it was _Jyn_ , and if she had been good at it, well, that just meant she’d done it a lot and not with him. Her grip was too hard and her mouth too lax, but the last one had been with a woman who…well, it didn’t matter now anyway.

Cassian could only take a couple minutes of her before he bent over and hauled her upright, crushing his lips to hers and tasting the salt of precome in her kiss. His hands went to her pants and unfastened them, pushing them down her hips and giving him access to where he most wanted to be. His thumbs swept over her hipbones, and his fingers splayed out over her ass.

Jyn broke from the kiss to get her boots, socks, and the pants off, and Cassian did the same. Then Jyn returned to his lips, hands cupping his jaw, and he slid his hand into her underwear. He got a pleasing hitch of her breath in response when his fingers touched her between her legs, and he pushed his hand a little further down so he could cup her. The wetness in her underwear touched his knuckles that were against the fabric, and he wanted nothing more right now than for his fingers to be in her.

And he wanted to go slow. He wanted to go slow, too, because their first time had been good, _Force_ , it had been good – he’d never had sex like that before or since – but their time before Scarif had left him morose, begging the universe for more time with this woman he’d fallen in love with in only a couple weeks.

Either Jyn’s mouth left his or his left hers – he didn’t know – but their lips stayed close together as his fingers teased at her opening, and their breath mingled together. Jyn was gripping the front of his shirt now, fingers curled under it and against his skin. He palmed her ass and pulled her toward him with his other hand, the action canting her hips up and bringing her closer to him, while his middle finger slowly pushed up and into her. She let out a breath before sharply taking one in. Cassian slid his finger in until he could go no further, his knuckles flush against her, and then he slowly pulled it back out to the tip, soaking wet, covered with her. Then he repeated the action, again and again, listening to her breaths.

“Do you like that?” he whispered.

“Yes,” she breathed back, fingers clutching his shirt tighter.

Cassian brought his finger back out again, rubbed her wetness against his thumb, and slid his finger back in. Then he rubbed circles around her clit with his thumb, keeping his eyes on hers. Jyn’s head fell, forehead hitting his chest. Cassian cupped her jaw with his free hand and tilted her face back up to his.

“Look at me,” he said. “I want to see you when you come. Tell me how what you’re feeling. Tell me everything.”

Her lips were parted, and her beautiful green eyes were unfocused on his face. “I’m…getting there,” she said.

“Good, good,” he whispered, and the next time his finger slid back out, he pushed another one in with it. Jyn groaned at the stretch and leaned forward against him, her head falling forward again, her body pushing up onto her toes. Cassian kept up what he was doing, but moved his fingers and thumb faster on her. She looked up at him again.

“I’m getting closer,” she said, and he watched, watched, watched, her face flushing, breaths coming faster and shorter. "It's really good." Her mouth opened further and she gasped. Her body clenched around his fingers, and her glazed eyes stayed on his.

He withdrew his finger and rubbed his knuckle against her clit. “Do you still taste as good as you used to?”

Jyn swayed where she stood. “What?” she asked in a dazed voice.

“I’d like to see if you do.”

Cassian got her up onto the bed, and she helped him quickly get her underwear off. He curled his arms around her thighs and wasted no time. Her hips bucked right up into his face the moment he licked her, and he loved it. In an ideal world, he’d go just as slow as he’d gone when fingering her, but she tasted too good, too good, and having his mouth on her again after two years too long was heaven.

There was nothing in the galaxy that tasted better than her.

Cassian reached back to grab one knee and raise it, and she got the idea. She lifted both legs over his shoulders, bring her center closer to him, and the new angle made him groan into her. He felt like he could just taste her all day like this and be happy.

But then Jyn spoke, and he realized he’d been wrong.

“That…that thing we did two years ago,” she said breathily. “Can we do that again?”

Cassian stopped and brought his head up. As his mind went back in time, he idly ran his tongue across his lips.

The memory clicked, and he smiled. He got up on the bed with her, and they adjusted so he was lying back on the pillow, and she climbed over him to straddle his face and brace her hands on the wall.

“I’ve never done this with anyone else,” she confessed, looking down at him.

“It’s okay,” Cassian said, his hands on her waist and his head turned up to her.

“You’re, um…” He waited as she struggled, giving her time and space to find her words. “You’re really good.”

Cassian chuckled, because he didn’t have an explanation for that, at least not one he wanted to give, or that wouldn’t sound bad.

“What I mean is,” Jyn said in a tight voice, “you make me feel good, and I want to make you feel good, too.”

“You do,” Cassian replied, wrapping his arms around her and leaning up so he could lay his cheek against her bare flesh and hug her. “I like doing this for you.”

Satisfied, Jyn leaned back, and Cassian readjusted. He couldn’t wait to taste her again in this position, his mind humming with memories of their night together two years again. He absently reached down and stroked himself. More precome had slid down the side of his cock, and the anticipation of being inside her made him ache desperately.

She came again within minutes of his mouth being on her, and when she’d stilled, he sat up, pulled his shirt off as she did the same, and then turned her over.

It was everything he wanted. Slow. Intense. He felt every part of her as he moved in and out of her, he caught every breath of hers on his skin. His fingers tangled with hers and clutched them more often than not, and she pulled him close. They had _time, time,_ _time,_ and they used up every last second of it.

When they finished, Cassian checked the time, and saw that over an hour had passed.

And he smiled.

 

They left to pick up Semmi and Kurdan another hour later (most of that time spent in each other’s arms in the bed), and on the way back to their ship with the other couple in tow, they found an old KX series droid dumped in a trash receptacle. Kurdan helped Jyn and Cassian dig it out, and Cassian quickly inspected it for signs of damage. It looked fine from his cursory glance, and they dragged it back to the ship. He smiled again, thinking about Jyn and Kaytoo arguing again.

Looking forward into the future, something he hadn’t done for over a decade (and had most certainly shoved away on that turbolift ride down from the Citadel Tower communications array and Scarif), he thought…life, maybe, might not be so bad after all. Jyn smiled at him from the co-pilot’s seat, just her little smile she reserved for those special few around her, and Cassian reached over to lay his hand across hers.

He opened his mouth. _I love you._

Closed it again. Gave her a little smile and squeezed her hand.

No. Not right now. But soon. Very soon. Anytime, really.

Because they had the time.

And as far as he was concerned, they always would.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [tumblr](https://thestarbirdfromtheashes.tumblr.com)!


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